2:13pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
1:35pm: The contract will be worth $2.1MM, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link), so he didn’t sign the qualifying offer. San Antonio likely used its Early Bird rights with Baynes to facilitate the deal and preserve its mid-level and biannual exceptions.
FRIDAY, 1:25pm: It’s a fully guaranteed deal for one year, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. That leaves open the possibility that Baynes signed his qualifying offer, worth about $1.115MM, but it remains unclear whether that’s the case.
THURSDAY, 8:26am: Not long after the most prominent of the two lingering restricted free agents re-signed with his team, it appears the other one will follow suit. Aron Baynes is in San Antonio for a physical and is expected to put pen to paper on a new deal with the Spurs, reports Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News (Twitter link). Both he and Eric Bledsoe had remained in restricted free agency for almost the entire offseason before Bledsoe re-signed with the Suns Wednesday. The terms of the deal for Baynes are unclear.
The Spurs appeared to maintain a consistent interest in re-signing the Entersport client even as they eyed others, and Baynes also appeared to want to continue to play in San Antonio even as he considered overseas options. San Antonio was reportedly open to a sign-and-trade with another NBA team, and China’s Shanghai Sharks jumped into the running for the 27-year-old center, but neither possibility appeared to gain much traction.
Baynes played a limited role for the Spurs after originally signing with the club midway through the 2012/13 season. He averaged 3.0 points and 2.7 rebounds in 9.3 minutes per game last season, and he only made it into 14 of San Antonio’s 23 playoff games en route to the title this spring, hitting the floor for 7.2 MPG in the postseason.
If Baynes has a fully guaranteed deal, it will presumably mean San Antonio’s regular season roster is set, since the team has been carrying 14 fully guaranteed pacts. The Spurs had been among the teams in pursuit of Ray Allen, while they’d also reportedly worked out veteran free agents Jamaal Franklin, Hakim Warrick, and a host of others, including Michael Beasley, who wound up committing to sign with the Grizzlies. A guaranteed deal for Baynes would likely forestall a deal with any other free agent deserving of guaranteed money, and it would make it more difficult for JaMychal Green, Bryce Cotton or Josh Davis to remain with the team come opening night on their partially guaranteed contracts.