reflections
May 22nd, 2008 Philly In No Rush to Extend Miller

Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News reports that Sixers General Manager Ed Stefanski and company have are in no rush to extend the contract of veteran point guard Andre Miller.

Despite what you might have read elsewhere, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to rush into discussions about an extension for Andre Miller. As excellent as Miller was, emerging as the team’s MVP, he’s 32 and has a year remaining on his contract. There’s no reason to believe Miller’s skills will drop off as he approaches 33, but they say that when it happens, it can sometimes happen fast.

For now, Miller represents an expiring $10 million contract at the end of next season, and - depending on circumstances - a huge chip at the next trade deadline. On the other hand, if he gets off to a start that rivals the level of this season, I wouldn’t be surprised by an in-season extension.

Miller put together one of his better seasons this past year with the 76ers. The nine-year NBA veteran dished 6.9 assists and grabbed four rebounds per contest, but also managed to set career highs this late in his career. “Dre” averaged a career-best 17.0 points per game at the most efficient clip of his career (49.2%). That’s impressive in its own right, but even more comforting when realizing that he even took the most shots per game of his career (14.1). Finally, Miller also set his lowest turnover-per-game number (2.5) since his rookie year in 1999-2000, where he turned the ball over 2.0 times in just over 25 minutes per game.

The numbers are beautiful, but they don’t tell the whole story. Miller was the catalyst to Philadelphia’s up-tempo attack throughout the second half of the 2007-2008 season, and without him, it’s tough to imagine that they’d have ever made such rapid improvements… let alone make the playoffs.

Miller’s $10 million expiring salary may very well be used as mid-season trade bait, as Jasner states in the cited article above, but if Miller and his agent aren’t too greedy, it may be wise to keep him around.

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Posted By: Dustin Chapman

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