I’ve never been shy in my (still premature?) view that J.R. Giddens just doesn’t look like an NBA player when he gets on the court. The Celtics apparently agree, as they’ve decided to decline their third-year option on Giddens for 2010-11, according to Chad Ford on ESPN.com/TrueHoop. That option, according to Sham Sports and Draft Express, was worth about $1.1M—not much in the NBA scheme of things.
As the great Roy Hobbs points out at CelticsBlog, this doesn’t mean we’ll never see Giddens here again. (And, of course, he’ll be here or in the D-League this year). It means the Celtics believe he’s worth less than $1.1M and will allow him to become an unrestricted free agent rather than pay him that amount. In other words, if he comes back here, it’ll be for the third-year minimum salary.
What’s interesting about this is that (as Brian Robb will tell you later today), the C’s need to find super-cheap ways to fill the currently empty back half of their 2010-11 roster, since they are already over the salary cap and possibly the luxury tax with the players under contract. The easiest way to do that: retain the current players on whom you have Larry Bird or Early Bird rights, i.e. the right to re-sign them even if doing so puts you over the cap.
This salary cap reality makes the decision to effectively part ways with Giddens even more of an indictment of his NBA ability than it might first seem.
Good luck, J.R.
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