With two extra months, Gay should be ready to go for San Antonio come late October. Wesley Matthews, one of the most recent Achilles injury cases, started the very first game for the Mavericks after suffering his in March. Still, he should be ready by the time the season starts, or shortly after. Gay is 30 and appears to be on the decline, but there’s a chance that he won’t even be the same player that he was last season when he averaged nearly 19 points on 46 percent shooting in the 30 games he played. An Achilles tendon injury is one of the worst muscular injuries in the NBA, and there’s a long history of players who suffer them never being the same. The other major concern for Gay is his ruptured Achilles, an injury he suffered last January. For a player going into his 12th NBA season with $118 million in career earnings, it’s understandable if winning was more important to him. On the other, though, the Spurs are one of the league’s top four or five teams, while the Kings are. On one hand, his new Spurs deal is up to $6 million less than he could have made.
Gay declined a $14 million option this summer to become a free agent, opting to choose his own path rather than return to the Sacramento Kings. The second year of the deal will have a player’s option. San Antonio Spurs forward Rudy Gay (22) shoots during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Washington Wizards, Monday, April 26, 2021, in Washington. Rudy Gay and the San Antonio Spurs have agreed to a two-year deal worth $17 million, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
