Cavs Board

Well just as I was thinking, “nothing is going on today”, Brian Windhorst has reported that Delonte West has resigned with the Cavs for the term of two years, at a per year salary of $4-5 million dollars.  From his article:

After a summer of intense negotiations, the team came to terms with restricted free agent guard Delonte West today.

West has agreed to a two-year contract with a team option for the 2011-12 season. According to league sources, the deal is worth between $4 million and $5 million per season.

The Cavs have scheduled a conference call later today to announce the news.

This is great news for Cavs fans. 

For Danny Ferry, he struck the perfect compromise.  I myself was skeptical to think West would settle for a two-year deal, but he’s essentially done just that, and even consented to an option year which will allow the Cavs to keep him around without fear of open market competition after the 2010 season should he exceed expectations. 

West’s contract, as so many other before him, lines up with the expiring contracts of 2010.  If the Cavs need his allotment of cap money, they can cut ties in a manner similar to how Robert “Tractor” Traylor’s run as a Cavalier ended.  And don’t shed a tear for West, because if that is in fact what happens to try to lure a second superstar to pair with James, West will still be in the prime of his career at the age of 26.

All the contractual length considerations aside, West proved to be a great fit for the Cavs last season, and considering there are role players on this roster making much more but contributing much less (Eric Snow, Wally Szczerbiak), this offseason’s modest contracts given out to Daniel Gibson and West are much more palatable. 

As opposed to the risks the Cavs took when spending $4-5 million per year on Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones, Ferry has made that type of monetary investment in proven commodities who have already flourished alongside James.  The previous years have seen the Cavs get burned by their fair share of external role player additions (Marshall, Newble, Damon Jones, David Wesley, Wally thus far).  Even marginally better luck with Maurice Williams would be met with rejoice by the fans.

Having touched on the money and years here, I think the other positive is that West seems to genuinely be happy to be here.  In Mary Schmitt Boyer’s story on the resigning, she had these quotes from West:

“This is the first time since I was offered a scholarship at St. Joes that I feel like I am valued as a person and a player,” West said in a release issued by the team. “Dan Gilbert and the Cavaliers have shown me that they value me as a person and a player and that was the most important thing to me.

“In that sense, this was not about a specific dollar amount. You can’t really put a dollar value on a person - their skills you can, but not their heart and what kind of person they are. My family is blessed and I feel a great relief to be able to concentrate on basketball now.”

Couple those comments with the recent press of what kind of character and class Darnell Jackson has shown in his dealings with his supporters in Kansas, and any Cavs fan can be happy with the personnel decisions this team has made in regards to their offseason dealings. 

Not that it’s relevant or prudent to link personal loss to character, but I find myself hoping that Lorenzen Wright enjoys success after being reminded of this story about the hardships he’s endured. 

I’ll follow up with more later as it develops.  Be sure to catch Dan Labbe’s write-up here.  And of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention WFNY, where RockKing has again done an excellent piece.

With this signing all but concluding the Cavs offseason activity, next week we’ll be shifting to looking around the league and getting ready for preseason.