June 6th: 10:20pm: Biyombo has officially opted out, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets.
May 28th 9:10pm: Raptors center Bismack Biyombo will decline his $2.9MM option for next season and become an unrestricted free agent, sources told ESPN.com’s Marc Stein. Biyombo’s floor in contract negotiations is anticipated to be $15MM annually, thanks to the impending salary-cap increase (Twitter links).
Biyombo’s stock rose dramatically during the Eastern Conference playoffs, when his playing time spiked after Jonas Valanciunas was injured. He averaged 5.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.6 blocks while appearing in every regular-season game, then bumped those averages to 6.2/9.4/1.4 in 20 playoff games.
He had two double-doubles in the Eastern Conference semis against the Heat, including a 17-point, 16-rebound outburst in Game 7. He also had a 26-rebound effort against the Cavaliers in Game 3 of the conference finals.
An Eastern Conference GM told Sean Deveney of The Sporting News earlier this week that Biyombo could command a salary in the $16-17MM annual range, while another said that a contract averaging $20MM per season is a possibility.
Biyombo has been in Toronto for just one season, so the team only holds his Non-Bird rights. That means that, unless the Raptors renounce DeMar DeRozan‘s rights or get creative elsewhere on the roster, there’s virtually no chance that the club can retain Biyombo if he receives offers of $15MM or more per season. The Raptors already have nearly $70MM in guaranteed contracts on their books for next season.
This is ridiculous… Guys like Biyombo making $15-20 million a year?!? I know that the new cap is supposed to put more money in the players pockets but is this really a good thing? Average NBA players will be making more than the beat NFL and most MLB players. I guess if the money is there everything is okay but just wow
The NFL players having non-guaranteed contracts is still absurd to me.
NFL players tend to have shorter careers, are more injury prone, and are usually prone to a quick drop off in production when compared to NBA players. Also with the NFL having a hard cap, you need the flexibility of being able to cut a guy without big financial ramifications. Working 53 plus guaranteed contracts under a hard cap would be a lot harder than working 15 guaranteed contracts under the NBA’s salary cap. If NFL contracts were fully guaranteed, you would probably see more short-term contracts (one to three years, even for the top players) or more “top” players being unsigned at the end of their contracts in order to have rookies or other cheap players take their spots.
If the Mavs can’t get Whiteside, Biyombo becomes a decent option.
Biyombo had probably the easiest opt-out decision of anyone this year. The offers he’s going to get will dwarf that $2.9MM.
Hello? Joakim Noah? This is Masai Ujiri…
Noah would be a logical fit there and he’d be much more appreciated than he was in Chicago.
I’M GLAD FOR HIM but I don’t see Bismark getting the $15-17 mil that’s being kicked around. Yes, he deserves a nice raise for what he been doing. He’s still not a complete center yet but given time, I think he’ll get there. Not the big scorer but he’ll become one of the best defensive centers. He’s still young and learning. I hated to see him leave the Hornets but he was going nowhere there.
Play behind white hurst for the Heat!
He and other Toronto sports athlete(Jose Bautista) think that they are worth more than they think.