NBA Free Agency: Drew Gooden to re-sign with Wizards
By Josh Hill
The NBA offseason is in full swing and that means we’re going to start hearing plenty of free agent rumors starting to fly left and right as teams begin to look at what they need and what they can’t afford on the open market. One team looking to make some improvements is the Washington Wizards who are trying to make sure that they can get back to where they were last season when they actually put together a winning year.
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Not everyone the Wizards want to re-sign are detrimental to the success of the team next season, as Drew Gooden is a guy who is likely to re-sign for more of a personal reason than a team need reason.
CSN Washington explains why Gooden re-signing with the Wizards is beneficial to him and his Bird Rights.
"If a player remains under contract with a team for three seasons, he has what’s called Bird rights in the collective bargaining agreement which allows a team to exceed its salary cap to retain his services. He can get up to five years with 7.5% raises each year. Early Bird rights-holders are just a scaled-down version of the former."
This isn’t to say that Gooden won’t be valuable to teh Wizards next season, but he’s also not coming back just because he wants to help out, there are other factors in play here. Still, Gooden is a guy that will help provide continuity if nothing else by coming back and he proved to be effective at times for a Washington team that is in need of veteran leadership to make sure the winning ways can continue.