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Manu Ginobili's new deal likely puts Spurs in Mid-Level Exception territory

Ginobili's 2 year, $14 million contract means that the gang's all here. But not to worry, there's still room for the Spurs to make another move.

By Trevor Zickgraf
USA TODAY Sports

Earlier, Manu Ginobili announced via Twitter that he had agreed to a two-year deal to stay with the San Antonio Spurs. We now know, thanks to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, that Ginobili's deal is for two years, $14 million total.

So $7 million a year.

This means the Spurs roster that was seconds away from winning the NBA title a few weeks ago will return almost completely intact. Sure, they still need to figure out what to do with Gary Neal, and everyone epects DeJuan Blair to be on his way out the door, but everyone else is pretty much set.

Ginobili and Tiago Splitter's contracts eat up almost all of San Antonio's salary cap space, so where do they go from here? Grantland's Zach Lowe chimed in on San Antonio's likely next step.

Basically, until Manu signs his deal, the Spurs are over the salary cap because of his $19 million cap hold. (Go here for an explanation of what a cap hold is.) As Lowe points out, the Spurs would need to sign player x with the mid-level exception, then have Manu and Tiago sign.

Again, let's go to Lowe's Twitter feed for a bit more speculation:

Names that have been thrown around lately are Andrei Kirilenko and Kyle Korver, among others. Considering Kirilenko just opted out of a $10 million contract, it'll be interesting to see if the Spurs could still lure him in with the combination of a salary of $5.15 million, the lack of state income tax in Texas and the chance to win a title. Korver would be less costly, though Milwaukee has reportedly offered him a three year, $20 million deal. It's also possible they could split the MLE between Neal and another lower priced wing or big man.

That's where things stand now.

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