Nikola Pekovic signs 5-year, $60 million contract

[Moz]

The Timberwolves locked up their restricted free agent center with a whopping five-year deal that could be worth a reported $68 million after incentives.

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/8/14/4 ... mberwolves

[Andrew]

It's a lot to pay someone who has had a few injury concerns, but he's a very solid big and such players usually get slightly overpaid due to their rarity. It was in their best interests to keep him and if he can stay healthy, it's a good investment. Fair enough, I say.

[Moz]

The only issue I'm seeing here is how Kevin Love will take this since back then he also demanded a 5 year contract but given just 4 years... Kahn dealt that contract though not Saunders

[[Q]]

so it loks like pekovic caved. iirc there was a standoff when minnesota offered 12 per and he wanted 15 per

[Andrew]

Well, there are those incentives that could net him an additional $8 million, so I guess he felt that was fair. I'd also suggest that it likely would've been the best offer on the table, especially since the Timberwolves can give him that extra year.

[NovU]

I read that no team offered him any contract because the Wolves were going to match anyway. I'm thinking some team could have cock blocked and made the Wolves sign him for more.

[[Q]]

but it's kind of like an auction where you try to outbid your enemy to try to drive up the price to make him pay more, but you run the risk of him backing out and you getting stuck

remember the knicks basically encouraged Jeremy Lin to sign with another team because they would "match anything" and they got shitted on by houston

[Andrew]

Exactly. Either you create tension with another front office that you might want to do business with sometime in the near future, or you're stuck with a contract you didn't want to pay.

[Bruce]

Basically, there was very little the Wolves could have done in terms of negotiations. Even if no team had the cap space to take Pekovic's contract, he could have just returned to Europe.