Soon after the news broke that Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb were headed to Denver in exchange for Allen Iverson, word started to trickle out that McDyess might retire than reportI can't say I was surprised -- I was in the Pistons' locker room after they were eliminated from the Conference Finals last year, and I saw McDyess fight back the tears while admitting to reporters that he already asked himself, "Hey, should I just retire?"
He added, "I don't want to be no ring-chaser, I don't want to be moving team to team being a ring-chaser. I can't do that. If I have to do that, I would definitely give it up. I mean, if I stay on this team another couple of years, we still have a chance, we just got to put our heart into it and do it."
That was May 30th. Four and a half months later, he's just been dealt to another team, albeit a familiar one -- McDyess was originally drafted by the Nuggets, and following a trade to the Suns he re-signed with the Nuggets in 1998 before his series of horrific knee injuries. He'll probably be greeted as a prodigal son more so than just a hired gun, but still, at this point in his career, is McDyess actually willing to make yet another move while going to a team no one considers a serious contender?
We'll have to wait and see, but for whatever it's worth, Rex Chapman, Denver's VP of player personnel, shot down the suggestion that the Nuggets will buy out McDyess' contract to allow him to re-sign with the Pistons after 30 days, a la Brent Barry's suspiciously convenient return to the Spurs last year.
This probably isn't the news Pistons fans want to hear right now, but it's worth pointing out that McDyess' situation is much different than Barry's was last year. For one, Barry had an expiring contract, and the Spurs had already paid half of what he was owed for the season. McDyess, on the other hand, is signed through 2010 and is owed more than $13.5 million over the life of his contract. For a team like Denver that's worried about pinching pennies, they're not going to just pay a guy (who just might be their best rebounder) over $13 million to let him sign with another team simply as a favor.
Sure, McDyess could force the issue and actually retire, but let's face it, as hard as it may be to move yet again, it's even harder to walk away from that kind of money. Maybe it's not how he wanted it to go down, but on the flip side, at least he's not going to some strange city; he knows the city of Denver and he's going there with Billups, by all accounts his best friend in the league.
I feel for McDyess -- on a team that's often criticized for playing things a little too cool, McDyess consistently left his heart on the floor -- but through no fault of his own (my guess is that it came down to his salary being just the right size), it wasn't meant to be.
