Millsap, Boozer, and the Contract Year Bump

Utah Jazz forward Carlos Boozer is an All-Star, Olympian, 20/10 workhorse, model power forward, and master aerial showman. He has a $12 million player option come up this summer. Oh, and he’s missed significant time this year with injury.
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↵In his place, we’ve seen bench player Paul Millsap—known mostly for his energy and “motor”—put up nearly identical numbers, arguably with stronger defense and a greater intangible impact. And yet from what I’m reading, their financial futures look very, very different. From The Salt Lake Tribune: ↵↵⇥Talking to an NBA general manager today, I asked if he would opt out of his contract were he Carlos Boozer this summer. The answer was decidedly no, for a variety of reasons, starting with the knee injury Boozer suffered this season. There are few teams with the salary-cap space to offer more than the midlevel exception this summer and even fewer willing to do so given the recession. The third reason was the GM’s belief that Boozer could cash in with a team that falls short in trying to land a marquee free agent in 2010.
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↵⇥The GM also said it was a given that another team would offer Paul Millsap a full midlevel deal (worth five years, $32.4 million last summer). The Jazz will be able to match any offer Millsap receives as a restricted free agent. ↵↵So Boozer will cash in on 2010’s glut of cap space, while Millsap has to settle for the mid-level. Some of that is league-wide circumstance, some of it reputation.

But I can’t help but think that we’re witnessing an unfortunate trend in modern GM-ing. Executives have wised up to the contract year explosion. It’s become too much of a bad joke, and teams have come to realize that at some point, a mediocre track record matters as much as potential. Millsap, though, is the opposite: A second-round picks who has only gotten a chance to prove himself right before free agency. Think Gilbert Arenas, or Monta Ellis, both of whom cashed in as second-rounders.
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↵I understand the reluctance to put too much stock in Millsap’s run this season, especially with all the prime, proven talent available the summer after. But you’d think that someone would be willing to bid high on Millsap, rather than end up paying more for Boozer the following summer.↵