Mike Wells is taking reader questions and putting them up for consideration on Pacers Insider. The first question deals with the $7.35 team option on Marquis Daniels and whether or not the Pacers should pick it up.
Heading into the offseason I figured this issue was a non-starter since the Pacers were looking to clear cap space and as much as I like Quisy, his $7.35 option would be too rich for the Pacers this offseason.
Then in his press conference last week, Larry Bird made a case for keeping Quisy due to the unknown status of Mike Dunleavy for next season. Now Mike thinks the move to keep Quisy wouldn't surprise him.
But what about the expected down market in the NBA this summer. Coming off an injury plagued year, could Quisy command more than a $5 million mid-level exception this summer? If there is a desire to bring him back, why not re-sign him after he's a free agent and save a couple million?
Quisy's pride may rule out the re-sign option, but if he's healthy he can rebuild his value playing in JOB's system.
Mike makes a good point about future cap space being more important than cap space this summer, but since Bird expects to have around $9-10 million to work with this summer, Quisy's option would mop up most of that reserve. Combined with the fact that he has to be considered injury prone at this point, there has to be a more efficient way to spend that money and make sure the depth at wing is addressed.