Charlotte Hornets: Surprise! Bismack Biyombo picks up player option

Charlotte Hornets center Bismack Biyombo exercised his $17 million player option for next season, which is not a surprise at all.

With the regular season over, some Charlotte Hornets players have some thinking to do regarding their future with the team. Bismack Biyombo, though, came to a decision pretty quickly, as he picked up his player option for the 2019-20 season.

He’ll be making $17 million next season, so this move is not a surprise at all. Biyombo would not get a contract anywhere close to that amount of money had he opted-out of his contract and hit free agency.

During the summer of 2016, the NBA’s salary cap increased to $94 million, which means teams threw a ton of money at players. Some players, including Biyombo, got a massive pay day, but has proved to not be worth that big amount of money.

This was the same free agency where the Hornets signed Nicolas Batum to a five-year, $120 million contract.

Biyombo signed a four-year, $72 million deal with the Magic. He was coming off a dominant playoff series with Toronto, so at the time, I was not surprised at that contract. After getting the money, though, Biyombo has been on a downward spiral.

The Magic traded Biyombo to Charlotte last summer in a three-team trade that also involved Chicago. The Hornets acquired Biyombo and two second round draft picks.

While he is still a solid backup center, Biyombo isn’t worth $17 million per year. This season, he averaged 4.4 points and 4.6 rebounds, but started in 32 games while starting center Cody Zeller battled injuries.

He’s a good player to have on the bench for depth at the center position, but the bummer here is that his contract is going to complicate an already stress-filled summer for the Charlotte Hornets.

Charlotte has little-to-no flexibility financially, so that is going to limit their ability to upgrade the roster. They are paying Batum $25 million, Biyombo $17 million and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (pending player option) $13 million.

With that being said, the two best players on the team, Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lamb, are both free agents that will command a ton of money this off-season. Keeping both of them is going to be tough, and if they do, they’ll have one heck of a payroll for a mediocre team.

General Manager Mitch Kupchak has a tough job, and will have a lot of big decisions to make over the summer. It wouldn’t surprise me to see if they try to trade one of those bad contracts, like Biyombo, but it would likely have to be in a salary dump, and the Hornets need to hold on to assets like draft picks.

If Biyombo remains on the team for next season, you can expect him to once again be a backup center that plays in-and-out of the rotation. He’s a good option when you are looking for rim protection.

We will see what Bismack Biyombo and the Charlotte Hornets decide to do this off-season. It has to be either building a playoff team or going into rebuild mode, because the fans don’t want to meet in the middle anymore.