Spurs sign Tony Parker to three-year extension

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The Spurs' off-season continues to get better and better. After a summer spent re-signing all of their free agents of note (including, most importantly, Tim Duncan re-upping for the upcoming season), the drafting of Kyle Anderson, who's been widely regarded as a potential "steal," and the team's decision to invoke a contract clause to keep an injured Manu Ginobili out of the FIBA World Cup, ensuring him the best chance of coming into training camp fully healthy, the Spurs have just announced that Tony Parker has signed a three-year contract extension, which will keep him with the club until 2018.

The press release, per Spurs.com:

The San Antonio Spurs today announced guard Tony Parker has signed a multi-year contract extension. Per club policy, terms of the contract were not announced.

Parker has spent his entire 13-year NBA career with the Spurs after being selected by San Antonio with the 28^th overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft. The 32-year-old Parker is one of the most decorated players in Spurs history, being named to four All-NBA Teams (second team in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and third team in 2009) while earning six All-Star appearances (2006, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014). The Spurs have captured four NBA Championships during Parker's tenure in San Antonio.

During the 2013-14 season Parker averaged 16.7 points, 5.7 assists and 2.3 rebounds in 29.4 minutes. It marked the fourth consecutive season that Parker has led the Spurs in scoring. He earned All-NBA Second Team honors and was the Spurs lone representative in the 2014 NBA All-Star Game.

In his career, Parker has appeared in 940 regular season games averaging 17.1 points, 6.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds in 32.6 minutes. He has seen action in 196 playoff games averaging 18.9 points, 5.3 assists and 3.0 rebounds in 35.7 minutes.

Only two active NBA players, Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant, have appeared in more postseason games than Parker. Among all-time NBA Playoff career leaders he ranks 12^th in points (with 3,705), eighth in assists (1,034) and eighth in games (196).

Parker, who was the MVP of the 2007 NBA Finals, is the Spurs all-time NBA career leader in assists in both regular season and playoff action.

And here are quotes from the man himself, via the Express-News:

"I'm very happy and I want to play for the Spurs my whole career and be a Spur for life," Parker, who will be 36 upon the expiration of his extended deal, told the Express-News. "I love San Antonio and want to live here when my career is over. I love the city, I love the people and our great fans. I couldn't be happier."

Friday's news increases the likelihood that each of the Spurs' Big Three - a designation that includes team captain Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili - will finish his career with the team that drafted them.

"It's unbelievable and I don't take it for granted," Parker said. "It's unbelievable what we've accomplished and hopefully we can do more together."

Though naturally the Spurs aren't releasing the salary figures, there's this from Woj:

San Antonio's Tony Parker has agreed to a three-year extension that could be worth as much as $45M, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) August 1, 2014

Take that with a grain of salt though, as the official figures for Spurs contracts tend to be slightly less than the ones first reported. Spotrac.com is reporting three-years, $43.3 million, for example. The Express-News is going with that number as well.

While Parker signing an extension isn't an Earth-shattering shock --he'd been saying on the record that he wants to be a Spur for his entire career-- it's nice to have it signed, sealed and delivered, one thing less to worry about next off-season and a way to have some cost certainty at point guard for the next few seasons. It represents not only a show of faith from the Spurs that Parker's game won't decline too badly through his age 36 season but from one from Parker as well that the Spurs can be a title contender even after the expected retirements of Duncan and Ginobili in the near future. It's a safe guess that Boris Diaw, Parker's best friend in the league, being on the books until 2018 influenced this contract as well.

Tiago Splitter and Patty Mills are signed are signed until 2017 and Anderson is tied to the Spurs until 2018 at least, but outside of them everyone is free and clear after this season. The Spurs are still expected to sign Kawhi Leonard to an extension, sooner rather than later and their most prominent free agent next summer will likely be Danny Green. They will still be in position to go after a prominent free agent to be the third banana to Leonard and Parker.

With Parker's extension out of the way, the front office can now turn their full attention to Leonard, hopefully convincing his agent to accept less than the max.