The deal to keep Gay in Sacramento will allow the scorer to reach free agency at a better moment and ends some uncertainty for the Kings.
After flirting with a deal in the offseason, the Kings and Rudy Gay reached an extension agreement that will keep the high-scoring forward out of free agency in 2015. The three-year, $40 million deal has Gay staying in Sacramento through 2017-18, though there's a player option for the deal's final season. While Gay will be taking a steep pay cut next season -- he's making more than $19 million this year -- it's the perfect deal for both sides.
Before we explain why, we need to re-assess Gay in Sacramento. He's very different from the Rudy Gay you might remember from Memphis or Toronto.
As a supplemental option, Gay is more efficient. The biggest item to note about Sacramento Rudy is he's a clear No. 2 option behind DeMarcus Cousins. That wasn't the case in Toronto, where Gay was the No. 1 weapon on offense (in his mind, at least). With the Raptors, Gay had 1,000 shooting possessions in 1,785 minutes, or just over 20 shooting possessions per 36 minutes, including free throws. In Sacramento, Gay has had 1,174 shooting possessions in 2,261 minutes, or 18.7 shooting possessions per 36 minutes. It's a relatively small difference, but there's also the matter that defenses are more keyed in on stopping Cousins, so Gay can get free with less attention.
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The knock on Gay has always been his lack of efficiency. That's disappeared in Sacramento.
So why does deal works so well for both parties? Gay's value is sky-high because of the improvements he's made. Without signing an extension and assuming he continues to perform, he'd have entered 2015 free agency among the top 10 options. He probably would have been in line to ink a deal around $15 million per season, with the Kings or elsewhere.
But remember in 2016 the salary cap figures to explode due to the new national TV deal. It should be the goal of all upper-tier players to become free agents in 2016, or as soon as possible thereafter. If Gay were to enter 2015 free agency, chances are any team paying big coin might insist he sign for three years to protect themselves from a quick free agent exit. In this case, longer deals benefit the teams more than players. Signing a three-year deal in 2015 would mean Gay couldn't take advantage of the new TV money until 2018.
The deal Gay signed with Sacramento allows the forward to opt out in 2017, one year after the cap explodes and just before he turns 31. It also pays him pretty well up until that point (an average of $13.3 million per season). It's basically the deal Gay would have wanted in free agency: a short deal with a big paycheck, plus some security if things go haywire. There was really little reason for Gay to wait until July to try to get such a deal, especially considering that the Kings look to be on the rise.
The Kings needed to keep Gay, and have been working hard for months to make it happen. Doing so now allows Sacramento to maintain current momentum -- they are No. 8 in the West against an absolutely brutal schedule -- and lets them focus on other positions in free agency and the trade market. The elimination of uncertainty is a valuable thing.
The Kings know they have small forward locked down going forward in addition to center, so they can focus exclusively on the rest of the roster. Uncertainty is something that hindered the Kings' front office in 2014 as they had to wait on Isaiah Thomas' future to be resolved before addressing the rest of the roster. The only current Sacramento rotation player who isn't signed for 2015-16 is Reggie Evans, who is the fourth big. General manager Pete D'Alessandro has all of his cards lined up, and he can make moves and target specific positions as he pleases.
As of now, without accounting for cap smoothing, the Kings should have around $10 million of cap space in 2015. If the cap explodes as we think it will in 2016, the Kings would have about $30 million in cap space with Cousins, Gay, Darren Collison, Carl Landry, Ben McLemore and Nik Stauskas under contract. Of course just about every team will have max cap space in 2016. But this Gay deal doesn't keep Sacramento out of that party.
Keep in mind also that the Kings have historically had trouble luring big name free agents to sign outright, instead relying on the draft (Peja Stojakovic, Cousins) and trades (Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, Gay) to build good teams. So long as Sacramento has movable roster pieces and flexibility, there's little sense in targeting massive cap space. This is different than with, say, the Lakers, who do have a history of landing big fish in free agency. Less glamorous markets need a different gameplan. Signing Gay fits with that Sacramento needs to do to continue to build a fuller roster.
When you consider that the Kings are also paying below-market rates for a top-10 scorer in his prime, it looks even better. Sacramento has overpaid Gay for the just-under two seasons since they acquired him. Now it seems they'll get a good deal on him for two or three more seasons.
That's a nice result after a risky move. It paid off.