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Someone buy David West’s agent a round. He might need it here sometime before the end of the night.
In a move that mostly went under the radar amidst more entertaining stuff like “WHO WILL MY TEAM DRAFT!?!?”, West opted out of his final contract year with the Indiana Pacers in what has to be considered somewhat of a surprise considering money is undefeated and had more chips on the table with the Pacers than going elsewhere.
By opting out, West ditched a guaranteed $12.6 million just to put on a Pacer uniform … happy, sad, indifferent … to hit the open market. The Pacers will now have around $11 million of unexpected loot to play with this off season.
First, the ramifications for West, 34, who left for supposedly a better fit.
From a financial standpoint at first glance, it looks like someone moved the decimal point on him when telling him what he’d be paid. At his age, West isn’t going to get anywhere near $12 million annually from any other team.
The odd part is the “fit” part. The Pacers had outstanding chemistry up until the Spring of 2014 when they went from a title favorite to a late season episode of “Rock of Love” where all the girls just can’t stand one another.
It depends on what he does, but West is in the short term, taking a massive pay cut. In the long term, he probably won’t be in a position to take a ton of advantage of the increased salary cap from the new TV deal in two years because of his age, so maybe this, a shallow free agent class, is his best shot at getting paid by a contender rather than try to muscle some cash out of a summer when everyone else will be doing the same and less long in the tooth.
On top of that, if it really was the fit with the Pacers that pushed him this way, why? Most of the core remains the same, including the coaching staff. Money is undefeated, but it cannot buy happiness … completely, at least.
The other oddity is that West, at this stage in his career and by his own admission, wants to play for a title contender. Assuming Paul George comes back healthy (huge assumption, by the way, which West would have more insight to than all of us even though I swear I’m not suggesting anything), the Pacers fit that criteria in a watered-down Eastern Conference.
It’s an odd move for West, but one that you can wrap your head around if you just want OUT and see a mediocre free agent class that might see you get over-paid anyway. If we know anything about NBA GM’s, it’s that they are the guy who wins the scratch off ticket and keeps going back to buy more until he runs out of money.
And then you’ve got the Pacers, who had to be somewhat pleased by the news.
People aren’t going to like this statement, but David West hasn’t played all that hard in a long time. He has a menacing scowl and looks like he eats sheet metal for breakfast, so that gives a different allure, but West was very noticeably the last guy down the floor both on offense and defense very frequently with the Pacers the last two years.
Also, while his veteran presence was viewed as a major positive when the Pacers resigned him to this contract, it wasn’t enough from seeing the internal organs of the team hemorrhage last year during a title shot run. West is basically good for a trailer 15-footer and an occasional outburst to the hoop. Other than that, he spent too much time running behind the pack and complaining incessantly to the officials when he felt as though he was fouled, which was more often than he was actually fouled.
Paying $12.6 million for a trailer 15-footer and pick and pop guy was a problem for a Pacers team that already has said they want to go up tempo, which essentially was Larry Bird saying, “yeah, we can still be together, but you’re going to have to let me go out whenever I want, howl at the moon til as long as I want to, and if another girl wants to hang out, sometimes I can say yes” to West and center Roy Hibbert … who also has an opt-out clause that will be dealt with shortly.
From the financial end, the Pacers now go from having about 700 large in the bank to basically pay you or me to play to close to $12 million. That instantly makes them a player in free agency, though they should be wise to approach it frugally, as a weak class will mean guys are getting money they shouldn’t simply because it needs to get spent, teenage girl at the mall style.
But it does give them flexibility should they seek a player they previously couldn’t afford. If the Pacers are committed to playing at a faster clip, there’s much re-tooling of the roster to be done, and you can’t buy tools (legally) without money.
At any rate, West’s end with the Pacers is an odd one considering the span of time he was there offered so much promise on the back end. Happiness has a cost, whether you think money can buy it or not. The price of whatever the difference is between $12.6 million and whatever West ends up getting is apparently where the number is set, at least for him.
Both parties should be thrilled tonight, but for entirely different reasons.
