On KG and the Duncan market

According to multiple reports today,the , Kevin Garnett has agreed to re-sign with the Celtics  after his current contract expires tonight. for KG to be $34 million for three years.

You can bet folks in the Spurs front office are paying attention to the goings-on in Boston.

After all, the Spurs have their own 36-year-old, Hall of Fame-bound big man to re-up. At 11 p.m tonight, Tim Duncan also becomes a free agent. Nobody believes he’s signing with anybody other than the Spurs.

The question for Duncan is not if he will return for the Spurs, it’s for how much. Here is where the Garnett deal can be instructive. Three years, $34 million — perhaps with only a portion of the third year guaranteed — feels like a good ballpark for Duncan, too.

Statistically, the two players were remarkably similar last season. Garnett averaged 15.8 points and 8.2 rebounds in a little more than 30 minutes per game. Duncan averaged 15.4 points and nine rebounds in 28 minutes per contest.

Re-signing Duncan to a Garnett-like deal, with the 2012-13 season starting somewhere in the $10 million range, would leave the Spurs still over the salary cap, but would help accomplish their goal of maneuvering well under the luxury tax threshold.

What would the Spurs’ payroll look like in this scenario? They’d be on the hook for about $60 million in contracts next season, well over the salary cap (it was $57 million last season and expected to rise marginally this season), and that’s before talking about Danny Green, Boris Diaw and other free agents.

However, the Spurs would be about $10 million below the luxury tax number, and that’s important for reasons beyond Peter Holt’s pocketbook.

Only teams that operate under the tax have access to the full mid-level exception — expected to be worth a shade over $5 million — for which to chase other free agents, like Diaw for instance, or to lure highly regarded Slovenian forward Erazem Lorbek from his team in the Spanish League.

If the Spurs were to be over the tax, it would be nearly impossible to both bring back Diaw and bring in Lorbek, much less add outside talent. This is where the KG deal feels like it would work for Duncan and the Spurs, too.

Free agency: What to expect from the Spurs

As you are standing around your computer today, Spurs fans, frantically refreshing Twitter and breathlessly awaiting news of what your favorite team is doing in the nascent stages of Free Agency 2012, here is a table you might find handy.

It is a look at the Spurs’ major free agency-related related moves since winning their most recent NBA championship in 2007:

Summer 2007: Sign Ime Udoka and Ian Mahinmi

2008: Sign Roger Mason Jr., re-sign Kurt Thomas.

2009: Trade for Richard Jefferson, sign Antonio McDyess and Keith Bogans

2010: Sign Tiago Splitter, re-sign Matt Bonner

2011: Sign T.J. Ford

When considering the question of how active the Spurs might or might not be in free agency, it is instructive to look back how they’ve spent previous summers.

With the exception of 2009, when the Spurs traded for Jefferson and signed McDyess, summertime for the Spurs has not been about making a marquee splash. It has been about cherry-picking value to fill a specific need, often late in the summer after the big names have already committed elsewhere.

That approach is by necessity. With a trio of All-Stars (see: Duncan, Parker, Ginobili) eating up cap space for the better part of a decade, the Spurs simply haven’t had room on the payroll to take on other high-dollar additions.

Even with free agent Tim Duncan set to perhaps take a 50-percent pay cut from the $21.2 million he was on the books for last season, this summer promises to be quiet as well. Last year’s salary cap was $57 million; before Duncan makes another cent, the Spurs are already on the hook for nearly $50 million in salaries for 2012-13.

Once Duncan signs, the Spurs are all but certain to be over the salary cap again, leaving them with only the mid-level exception, biannual exception and veteran minimum contracts with which to lure other free agents.

That’s not going to get you, say, Roy Hibbert. The Indiana All-Star center is poised to sign a maximum offer sheet with Portland. Or even Nicolas Batum, who could be looking at a $50 million pay day in Minnesota or elsewhere. Spurs fans pining for either player were dreaming anyway.

Expect a free agency period much like last December for the Spurs, when they looked into MLE-type wing players (Caron Butler and Josh Howard), before ultimately signing just one veteran free agent: backup point guard T.J. Ford, for the league minimum.

A reasonable expectation for the Spurs’ offseason is this: Re-sign Duncan to a deal that is substantially less than what he made last season, but still starts in the $10 million range; re-sign Danny Green and (perhaps) Patrick Mills; use the mid-level exception to re-sign Boris Diaw and perhaps bring Erazem Lorbek over from Spain or Nando de Colo from France.

As for outside free agents, expect the Spurs to bring in a veteran minimum guy or two as we get closer to training camp.

Expect the team that takes the court opening night in October to look almost identical to the one bounced from the Western Conference finals last month.

Of course, all of this is just a guess. But based on the Spurs’ past history and cap situation this summer, a reasonable one.

Spurs’ Duncan on the market, but likely not for long

The last the public saw of Tim Duncan, he was standing in a doorway just outside the locker room shower at Chesapeake Energy Arena, trying hard to avoid talking about his basketball future.

The Spurs had just been bounced from the Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City, leaving Duncan in no mood to discuss his impending free agency.

“I haven’t even thought about it, and I really don’t care,” Duncan said June 6. “I’ll figure it out when it happens, just like everything else.”

That time has come.

Duncan’s contract expired at 11 p.m. Saturday, making the 36-year-old franchise icon a free agent for just the third time in his 15-year NBA career.

Much like the last time, in 2003 when Duncan opted out of his deal with the intention of signing a new one with the Spurs, he doesn’t plan to shop around.

In an interview with Yahoo! Sports during the playoffs, Duncan memorably declared himself “a Spur for life.”

“I don’t see him not having a future with the franchise,” coach Gregg Popovich said of the two-time league MVP.

So the question now at the dawn of Duncan’s latest foray into free agency is not whether he’ll re-sign with the Spurs, who drafted him first overall in 1997. It’s at what price tag.

The market for a 36-year-old power forward with Hall of Fame credentials and a championship ring might have been set Saturday, as multiple reports indicated Kevin Garnett was planning to sign a three-year, $34 million deal to remain with the Boston Celtics.

Statistically, the two big men were remarkably similar last season.

Garnett averaged 15.8 points and 8.2 rebounds in a little more than 30 minutes per game. Duncan posted 15.4 points and nine rebounds in 28 minutes.

Both players earned around $21.2 million last season, pro-rated for the lockout-shortened schedule. Both were left off the All-Star team for the first time in their decorated careers.

Spurs general manager R.C. Buford declined to publicly discuss negotiations with his star power forward.

“That’s not something we would comment on,” Buford said.

By NBA rule, Duncan is the only free agent with whom Spurs management had been allowed to negotiate before Saturday night.

Given that head start, it is not difficult to imagine an agreement with Duncan in place by July 11, the first day players are permitted to sign new contracts.

Re-inking Duncan to a Garnett-like deal, with the 2012-13 season starting somewhere in the $10 million range, would not get the Spurs under the salary cap.

But it would help accomplish the more feasible goal of moving them below the luxury tax threshold, set at $70 million last season and expected to increase marginally for next season.

That is significant for reasons that go beyond owner Peter Holt’s pocketbook.

Only teams below the luxury tax have access to the full mid-level exception — expected to be worth a shade more than $5 million — with which to lure other free agents.

That won’t be enough for the Spurs to conjure a radical summertime makeover, but it might be enough to keep together the bulk of a team that finished 50-16 last season and made the conference finals.

Other in-house free agents for the Spurs include forward Boris Diaw, who at age 30 could be chasing his last significant NBA payday, as well as restricted free agents Danny Green and Patrick Mills.

The Spurs have already extended qualifying offers to both guards — $2.7 million for Green, $885,120 for Mills — giving the team the right to match other offers.

“This is my first time to be pursued,” Green, a 25-year-old set to enter his fourth NBA season, said Saturday. “It’s an exciting time, and hopefully a fun time. I’m hoping there’s a good amount of teams who like what I can do.”

The Spurs could also choose to fortify their roster with players from overseas, including Slovenian big man Erazem Lorbek and French guard Nando de Colo.

Though the Spurs own draft rights for both players, money to sign either would come from their free-agent budget.

Buford said the team would continue to monitor all its European projects — de Colo is set to play for the French team in the London Olympics later this month — but added “we’re not going to try to rush the timeline.”

“When it’s right for them, hopefully we’ll be able to work out an arrangement that fits for them and fits for us,” Buford said.

Those discussions, of course, are secondary on the Spurs’ offseason to-do list. This has always been the summer of Duncan, and it officially began Saturday night.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN