Bynum Gets His Re-Up; Good for Both Sides

Is it possible that Andrew Bynum and Greg Oden are engaged in some sort of weird karmic closed circuit, where what helps one ends up hurting the other? Oden misses his rookie year, Bynum blows the eff up; Oden starts this year with an injury and, according to the Los Angeles Times, Bynum gets that extension we thought might not happen:↵↵⇥The Lakers and Andrew Bynum have agreed in principle on a four-year contract extension worth about $58 million, keeping their center of the future in the fold through the 2012-13 season, according to sources familiar with the negotiations who would not speak publicly.↵⇥
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↵⇥Bynum, who will make $2.8 million this season, will earn close to $42 million over the first three years of his contract extension. The fourth year will be a team option for about $16 million.↵↵Doing some rough math, that’s about $14 million a year -- not quite max territory, which some had thought Bynum might command on the (semi) open market of restricted free agency, but still a lot for a few months of strong performance. The shorter contract with a team option makes it something of compromise between the fashionable, player-friendly mini-max and the long-term deals we’re used to seeing key players get. Here, though, it’s not as simple as putting pressure on the team vs. keeping a guy around no matter what. The Lakers have, to some degree, protected themselves against Bynum’s becoming an albatross; the player option, plus this center’s youth, mean he could be in line for a huge payday sooner than we think. Smart for both sides.↵
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↵That Bynum did sign this extension at the last minute is evidence that either he was serious about staying in Los Angeles -- why wouldn’t he, since they just made the Finals -- or he was getting a sense that there might not be a super-max deal waiting for him next summer even. Or that there was just no way of knowing how this season would go, so banking on upping his stock further wasn’t worth the risk. My guess is that it was some combination of the three factors.↵