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In what became one of the most mature resolutions to a difficult situation I have witnessed between a team and an agent, David Lee signed a $7 million contract (1) with the Knicks.

The qualifying offer for Lee would have been just $2.682 million, so this is a significantly higher salary for the restricted free agent and essentially buys him off from securing a long-term deal for one season while New York preserves as many options as possible for their 2010 cap space.

To cap off a summer that saw so many free agent situations get botched (2), it is nice to see Mark Bartelstein, David Lee and the Knicks get this deal done.

The Knicks are already guaranteed one max contract slot and depending on what happens in regards to the cap and 10-11 contracts of Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries, they could conceivably have a second max contract slot and signing Lee to that potential space was not something Donnie Walsh was keen on doing.

New York is in a situation where they can't really afford to let assets walk away even if I haven't been Lee's biggest fan, evidence by this piece I wrote in May entitled, 21 Reasons Why Knicks Shouldn't Break Bank With David Lee. It wasn't so much Lee's talents or limitation I was concerned about as the pure price tag and how that would impact their flexibility to make other moves.

As the Knicks enter the most pivotal point in their franchise's history since the 1985 Lottery, they can ill afford to not win 35-42 games, especially with their 2010 first rounder going directly to Utah.

Not having Lee would affect that win total and aversely challenge the development of Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and Jordan Hill.

Retaining Lee, along with his Bird rights, also makes a trade down the line later this season or a sign-and-trade next summer feasible since he is a player that would instant fit into most any system.

Grade for Knicks: A

For Lee, there is absolutely no downside given how soft his market was this summer, the surge of additional teams with cap space next summer and the commitment New York has made to keep him if they can't clear room for a second max player.

Clearly, Lee would prefer to remain in New York, where he has been the only consistently effective remnant of the Isiah Thomas-regime (3).

When it comes to non-All-Star players, I'm of the mind that leaving long-term, guaranteed money on the table is never a wise idea. For the sake of argument, we can assume that Lee could have signed an offer sheet with Portland for approximately the same amount, if not a little bit more, than Paul Millsap (4).

But Lee won't be exposed in any type of negative way this season and isn't much of an injury risk and could stand to stay with the only team he has played for under a five-year, $50M contract, while playing beside a premier superstar to be determined.

Grade for Lee: A-

Footnotes

1.) The deal reportedly has a $1 million bonus if Lee reaches the playoffs.

2.) Botched situations include Trevor Ariza, Hedo Turkoglu reneging on Portland, Stephon Marbury streaming his way out of the NBA, etc.

3.) The verdict on Wilson Chandler will be largely written during the 09-10 season.

4.) Millsap's deal is worth as much as $36M over four seasons.