She’s back. Lexie Hull is back in what is a big move for the Indiana Fever. And I thought it was going to be tough for the Fever to sign Lexie Hull. I thought it was going to be tough purely because of being a restricted free agent and I thought teams might wander for a little bit of money. I’ll talk a little bit more about it in a while.
I will say this is a multi-year deal. We’ll find more. We’ll hear more about it. And the Indiana Fever, from what I have heard from sources, the one-year deal, Kelsey Mitchell wanted to sign long term. The Fever did not want to commit max money to her long term.
I don’t know if she wants to sign a long-term supermax and if the Fever only want to give her a long-term deal, she would have to do what Arike Ogunbowale did and take a pay cut, which could very well be the case, but it is an interesting one.
It is a big one. And Lexie Hull announced on TikTok. She announced it via TikTok. It says she’s back. So, it’s Lexie Hull and Sophie. Lexie Hull and Caitlin Clark at the Masters. And hopefully, good old Irish Rory McIlroy can win it again. He’s six shots ahead. He doesn’t have the pressure of choking again because he didn’t choke last year. He only almost choked.
But Lexie Hull signing a multi-year deal is big. That is big. And it means that Lexie is going to be there minimum till the end of Caitlin’s rookie deal. By the way, I have a feeling the Indiana Fever aren’t going to trigger the max contract on one of Aliyah Boston or Caitlin Clark.
If you don’t know, they’re allowed to negotiate for a max. If they don’t want a max, there’s nothing they can do to tie them down long term. It’s like with the reserved free agents. If you want to sign them long term, you get them on a deal. Like Julie Allemand signed for just over the minimum. She signed for below league average despite the fact that if she was restricted and not a reserved free agent, she would have signed for 800–900k a year.
But it would have been a really big one. So Lexie Hull obviously breaking her own news, which is good, but a multi-year deal means a lot. I think a multi-year deal shows that the Indiana Fever are prioritizing Lexie.
And I think the only way Kelsey Mitchell comes back to the Indiana Fever long term is if it turns out she’s so bad next year that there is a world where she’s not going to command the max, or maybe she’ll command the regular max and not the supermax.
Hull being back matters. And by the looks of things, you’ve got the Fever almost running it back. It looks like Monique Billings is going to be a financial downgrade from Natasha Howard, but an on-court upgrade.
Sometimes you can find a better fit that is just better for your team, and that’s what Monique Billings is going to be over Natasha Howard. She screens better. She runs harder. She’s younger. And she is easily a better fit with Caitlin Clark. She is a slightly better defender. I’m not going to say that Natasha Howard isn’t, because when she wants to, she is an elite defender. We saw it in the Commissioner’s Cup final last year. When Natasha Howard locks in for those two and a half games a year, she’s a fantastic defender.
If it turns out Natasha Howard comes back on a 500k a year deal, I’m okay with that. Rumor is Lexie Hull turned down more money to come back to the Fever. And I think everybody knew there would be a hometown discount with Lexie Hull.
The question was how much of a hometown discount. Depending on who offered the money, if it was another team, she might take 300k less a year to play in Indiana. If it was New York, it might only be 100k less because there are advantages for her being in New York as well, especially for her brand.
But at the end of the day, Lexie’s back for multiple years. We don’t need to worry about Lexie in free agency. We don’t need to worry about her going anywhere. And it being a multi-year deal is important for the Fever as well because the cap goes up every year.
So what you want to do is sign players on multi-year deals now. Let’s say she signed a 600k a year deal. It might not be the greatest deal right now, but by year three it’s going to be great value relative to the cap.
These long-term deals are really beneficial for teams. And I think the Indiana Fever keeping Lexie Hull is important for multiple years.
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