Resigning our restricted free agents

I'm back! I know you all terribly missed me. Since I know you don't care about the three days I spent this weekend hiking, kayaking, and fishing near Seward, I'll just jump right back into looking at the Sixers' off-season moves.

The biggest part of the Sixers' off-season that we still needed to look at was the Sixers' success in resigning our restricted free agents-- Louis Williams and Andre Igoudala (or Andre Igoudala and Louis Williams if you insist).

I can happily report that as of a few days ago, the Sixers have now successfully signed both of them to long-term deals.

Louis Williams officially signed his deal with the Sixers on August 4, although he tentatively had reached agreement with the Sixers a few days before that. For $25 million over 5 years, it seems like the Sixers' got a decent deal. He's probably not quite worth it today, but he's already a solid player, he's gotten better each year, and he's still young (21 years old). It never seemed like he was interested in leaving, but it's still nice to get the deal done.

As for Igoudala, we've already discussed the Sixers' seeming difficulty in signing him a few times (notably with regards to the slight possibility of a European team targeting him and the Luol Deng signing meaning Igoudala's asking price was going to be higher than hoped). That all changed a few days ago, however, when the Sixers offered Igoudala a staggering (at least to me) deal for $80 million over six years.

I'm happy we signed Igoudala, but I need to admit the price tag scares me a bit. I said that I thought Deng received more than I thought Igoudala was worth ($71 million over six years), and now we've signed Igoudala for even more. Wow. Apparently Stefanski feels like Igoudala is going to be an all-star over the next few years. I think there's a decent chance that Igoudala reaches that level, but with the contract he signed we're in a pretty rough place if he doesn't reach that level.

Ignoring the amount of money involved in the contracts, the Sixers are clearly a better team with Igoudala than without him. So from a fan's perspective (and the perspective of checking off items from the off-season to-do list), I'm excited.

And since I'm not writing the checks, I guess that's the only perspective I really need to worry about...

Up Next: Filling out the roster