Rudy Re-signs

Article by John Hollinger on ESPN Insider. I think it's the best I've read about the Rudy signing.

July 1: Gay rejoins Grizzlies for $80 million

So the first of the big free-agent dominoes has fallen, and surprisingly it's Memphis' Rudy Gay Even more surprising, he's staying a Grizzly. With a five-year, maximum deal worth more than $80 million that no suitor could match, the Grizzlies comfortably won the rights to retain Gay's services.

Gay's return comes as a surprise because of the penny-pinching ways of Memphis owner Michael Heisley, but there's always been a madness to his method. This is the same guy who traded Pau Gasol in a pure salary dump and yet has paid the same money to visibly inferior players in Zach Randolph and now Gay. In this instance, keeping Gay now rather than matching another offer prevented the likely outcome of having to match a heavily front-loaded offer sheet from another club for similar overall dollars.

Nonetheless, Gay is now grossly overpaid. No other Grizzly besides Randolph will make more than $5 million this year, but Gay is on the books for more than double that despite the fact that he's probably only the team's third-best player. While he's an impressive scorer, his game is completely one-dimensional and he's shown no improvement whatsoever in the past two seasons.

It's certainly possible he could do more -- Gay is only 23 and has enviable physical talents that could allow him to improve his game in several directions. But the thing he seems to need most is a change of scenery and a winning environment where more is demanded from him. That's the one thing he won't be getting for the next half-decade.

For Memphis it's a mistake contract, but it could have been worse. The Grizzlies will still be far below the cap in 2011 when Zach Randolph and the long-departed Marko Jaric come off the books, so Gay's deal needn't be a cap-killer even with Memphis' tight budget. Additionally, he's young enough that he should still be tradable if the Griz decide to shift gears in future years.

The fact Memphis kept Gay also lends a clue to one other oddity -- the decision not to make a qualifying offer to Ronnie Brewer (Warning: Conjecture coming.) The Grizzlies drafted Xavier Henry and Greivis Vasquez in the first round; combined with keeping Gay, it means their roster is already at 12 players. Memphis will almost certainly keep the minimum 13, which means the Grizzlies have one more spot to fill ... which they could have filled by making a qualifying offer to Brewer.

However, by far the more palatable option for Memphis would be signing a frontcourt player with its midlevel exception (or a portion thereof). Obviously, it's going to be tough to get a quality player to come to Memphis without a bowl-me-over offer, and the Grizzlies aren't going to be making one.

But given the glaring need, it at least helps to keep the option open. Memphis needs a big body a lot more than it needs another wing player right now, and my guess is that Heisley will pick only one.