Thursday, July 4, 2013

Reluctance my prove costly for young star

Kings pull $56 million offer to Andre Iguodala


After the Denver Nuggets expressed an unwillingness to match the Sacramento Kings' $14 million-a-year proposal to free-agent forward Andre Iguodala, Iguodala's reluctance to immediately accept the four-year, $56 million offer caused the Kings to withdraw the deal late Tuesday, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
Andre Iguodala averaged 13 points, five assists and five rebounds last season. (Getty Images)With no major offers elsewhere, Iguodala could return to talks with the Nuggets on a five-year contract extension. Denver wants to keep Iguodala as part of its core, but has shown restraint in formulating potentially salary-cap crippling offers to re-sign him to a long-term deal, sources said.
When the Kings demanded an answer for their offer on Tuesday night, Iguodala's desire to take more time to consider the deal signaled to Sacramento management that perhaps the free agent wasn't eager to leave a Western Conference contender for the rebuilding project.
Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly and coach Brian Shaw presented Iguodala with a five-year contract offer and a pitch to convince him to re-sign at a meeting on Monday in Los Angeles. It is unclear if the Nuggets raised their initial offer on Tuesday night, but they clearly didn't match the Kings' surprisingly aggressive $14 million-per-season offer.
Kings GM Pete D'Alessandro recently left the Nuggets' front office to become' the Kings top executive and had been pushing hard to convince Iguodala to be a cornerstone for his franchise. Without Iguodala in the Kings plans, the organization could reconsider how it feels about matching the four-year, $44 million offer sheet that restricted free agent guard Tyreke Evans could soon sign with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Iguodala averaged 13 points, five rebounds and five assists a game for the Nuggets a year ago. He had spent the first seven years of his career in Philadelphia. The Detroit Pistons have interest in Iguodala, but they have yet to make a formal offer to him, sources said.

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