Milwaukee Bucks: Bucks officially re-sign Tony Snell to four-year deal
By Ti Windisch
After the news broke on July 1, the Milwaukee Bucks officially re-signed Tony Snell to a four-year deal on Monday afternoon.
The NBA salary cap rules make teams do strange things sometimes, such as the Milwaukee Bucks verbally agreeing to a deal with Tony Snell on the first day of July and not signing the deal until the last day of that month.
Snell is officially a Buck for the next four seasons after he re-signed with the team on Monday afternoon, but Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news he would be coming back on July 1, right after midnight. Soon after, Snell himself took to Twitter to all but confirm his return.
And I especially want to thank the Bucks organization for this opportunity. Looking forward to what's next.
— T.Snell (@TonySnell21_) July 1, 2017
The Bucks themselves got caught slipping on this one, even. The team released a nice video today with Snell, Khris Middleton, Malcolm Brogdon and Jason Kidd saying nice things about their latest (re-)signee. That would be business as usual, except the background for the video is Las Vegas Summer League, and the Bucks haven’t participated in a Summer League game since July 14.
"I love the culture here, I love the fans..." - @TonySnell20 on his return to the Bucks#FearTheDeer pic.twitter.com/IWit8U7Cx4
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) July 31, 2017
If the deal was all but done, why wait to make things official? The most likely reason is that Milwaukee was in search of more moves to make, and Snell cost less as a cap hold than he did once his new four-year, $46 million deal was officially on the books.
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Snell re-signing now likely means the Bucks weren’t able to find anything left worth doing, in their estimation, this offseason. Something like dumping a big contract to sign a player would’ve been easier before Snell signed again.
Since he’s a restricted free agent and had bird rights, Milwaukee could go over the cap as necessary to keep Snell, something the team could not do with a true newcomer. Inking this deal does not prevent Milwaukee from doing anything else, but it likely signals that the team is not looking at signing anyone else for more than a salary cap exception–either the taxpayer mid-level exception or the veteran minimum.
There’s no way to open up cap space for anything besides those kinds of deals at this point. The Bucks could add a player through a trade, but unless they dump a remarkable amount of salary soon there will be no expensive free agent signings besides Snell before the 2017-18 NBA season.
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Even if his re-signing came after a whole lot of nothing, it’s still nice to have Tony Snell back on the Bucks next season. If his production remains anywhere near where it was last season, $11 million guaranteed each year will be a bargain.