You haven’t made a decision? “I definitely haven’t thought about anything yet,” he said. “It’s not even All-Star break. There’s a long way left in this season. I’m just trying to go out there and make the most of it.”
More on Aron Baynes Free Agency
Citing unnamed sources, Basketball Insiders published a story Wednesday afternoon saying the Pistons were gauging interest in backup centers Baynes and Boban Marjanovic, adding that Baynes will decline his player option for next season. Baynes told the Free Press after Wednesday night’s 118-98 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans that no decision has been made. He responded with a laugh when asked about the report. “I don’t know about that,” Baynes said. “I’m just focused on the season right now. That’s all I’m doing, just playing basketball. I have an agent. That’s the unfortunate side of basketball, but I let him do his thing. I’m just out there trying to do mine.”
However, another player in a contract season may not return to the Pistons. “Aron [Baynes] is a really good player and I said this after the last game, we’re going to be in a difficult situation by the [CBA] rules of trying to re-sign him next summer,” Van Gundy said. “I’m supposed to downplay him, not play him up and tell you, ‘You know, that guy’s a pretty solid backup,’ but the bottom line is he’s a starting-caliber NBA center who we’re very lucky to have as a backup.”
Everything the Pistons have come to love about Baynes is what will compel competitors to steal him away next July. It’s all due to an NBA collective bargaining agreement arcana. Baynes’ side negotiated an opt-out clause following the 2016-17 season when he signed as a free agent with the Pistons in July 2015. Holding Baynes’ rights for two seasons gives the Pistons partial Bird rights – but not full Bird rights. And that difference limits them to offering Baynes – on the slam-dunk assumption that he’ll exercise his contract option – 175 percent of his 2016-17 salary, reportedly $6.5 million, or an offer no greater than $11.375 million for next year.
It doesn’t matter if the Pistons will or won’t have cap space – they won’t – so it’s not a matter of unloading other contracts to keep Baynes. They’re capped at what they can offer and Van Gundy is 99.9 percent certain he’ll get offers significantly above what they can give him. “We were criticized because we paid him too much money and now he’ll make about triple next summer and we won’t be able to re-sign him,” Van Gundy said earlier this week in New York. “Right now we could trade him to 29 teams in about five seconds at what he’s making. I don’t think we made too bad a deal.”
Aaron McMann: Certaines are few and far between in sports, particularly basketball, but barring injury or some unforeseen circumstance that I can't come up with at this time, Aron Baynes will opt out of his contract over the summer. He would be a fool not to. Baynes signed a three-year, $20 million contract with the Pistons two summers ago, good money for a backup center. But that was before the salary cap explosion last summer, with another increase coming next, and backup big men were pulling in contracts for $15-18 million a season. In fact, Pistons president-coach Stan Van Gundy said pregame Wednesday in New York Baynes could command as much as $18 million. If that's the case, the Pistons simply cannot afford him.
Baynes will go back to his normal position in the post when he comes to training camp this month. It could be his last season with the Pistons. He’s under contract to make $6.5 million this year and has an early termination option on his contract for 2017-18. Because the Pistons might not have enough money to keep the veteran center if he were to exercise his option and become a free agent, the team went out and signed 7-foot-3 Boban Marjanovic as insurance.
“We’re limited in what we can do with Aron next year,” Van Gundy said. “Two things happen: No.1, by rule, if Aron does opt out, we’re limited in how much we can offer him, by rule, because he leaves in two years. There’s only a certain percentage of his salary we’re allowed to offer him, and it comes in under $12 million a year. If you look at where the prices on big guys went this year on guys like Bismack Biyombo and Ian Mahinmi, that’s far beyond that $12 million. There could be a possible scenario where we wouldn’t be able to compete to keep him.
It was motivated in large measure by their look ahead to 2017 when they (a) expect Baynes to opt out, (b) question their ability to match a similarly aggressive offer sheet and (c) expect a thin crop of free-agent centers to replace Baynes, if it comes to that. “We’ve probably got more true centers than anybody in a league that’s going away from true centers, but looking at Aron’s situation – and the part that people understand is he’ll opt out, probably, based on the salaries we saw this year – and the part they don’t understand is if he opts out and because he’s only been here two years, we’re limited in how far we can go in our offer. It wasn’t a matter of you don’t want to pay him or you don’t think he’s worth it. It’s that we’re limited.”
