David West (kind of like Caron Butler) is an interesting free agent case — he’s 31 and coming off major knee surgery. Combined those are a pretty massive red flag.
But he has been a good, borderline All-Star (he made it in 2008 and 2009) forward who is one of the best pick-and-pop bigs in the league. Pair him with a good point guard and you get some instant offense and solid all-around play. That is, if he is all the way back.
He’s an unrestricted free agent and the Hornets want to keep him — it’s going to be hard to keep Chris Paul happy without him — but a number of teams are interested, tweets Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated.
Indiana has Darren Collison, Washington has John Wall, Golden State has Stephon Curry — you can see while all of them would reach out to West.
The question really becomes how much are they willing to pay.
West made $8.3 million last season and opted out of a $7.5 million payday for next season. He would like to make more than that, but what he really wants with it is the security of multiple years. How many years are you willing to give a 31-year-old coming off knee surgery?
The team willing to take the biggest risk gets him.