Isn't $16 million per year the maximum he can get per year on his next deal?
If he rejected it, I imagine he believes he'd be better off taking a shorter deal and then getting more than that after a couple of years.
No, it isn't. $16 million is the max for a contract that starts this year, but next year, the max for someone with his experience is projected to be around $20 million for year one, with max raises of about $1 million per year. In other words, if he signs a max 4-year deal next summer with some other team, it would be around 4 years, $86 million, or about 1/3 more than the deal he rejected.
Ah okay, that makes a lot of sense.
I thought the cap on deals for players coming off their rookie deal was around $16 million, but that must have been for players signing this summer, not next summer.
Totally makes sense for Barnes to turn it down. Next summer lots of players will get deals above and beyond what their value would be in a normal free agent market because so many teams will have tons of cap space.
Somebody will pay Barnes big money next summer. Wouldn't shock me if it's the Celtics.