The Market for Chauncey Billups is Shrinking

Joe Dumars has made no secret that his top priority this summer is re-signing unrestricted free agent Chauncey Billups. Fortunately for Pistons fans, his job got a little bit easier the last few days. Before the draft and the start of free agency, there was only a small handful of teams who had anything close to the salary cap space to sign Billups. But of those teams, at least three are no longer in serious consideration:

-- Charlotte traded lottery pick Brandon Wright for Jason Richardson, who will make more than $11 million next year. Plus, the Bobcats still might want to use the rest of their money to re-sign Gerald Wallace.

-- After drafting Mike Conley, the Grizzlies no longer have a need to spend big money on a franchise point guard. Instead, they'd be wise to use the bulk of their cap space toward getting another big man to play next to Pau Gasol.

-- Technically speaking, the Bucks are still in the race, but Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal-Times reports that they've already made a five-year, $40 million offer to re-sign Mo Williams, who is six years younger than Billups. Considering Billups is expected to make anywhere from $10 million to $13 million a year, it just makes more for Milwaukee to go for the younger and cheaper Williams.

So who's left? Perhaps the Orlando Magic, but they reportedly consider Billups a fallback option to Rashard Lewis. Plus, if the Magic want to retain Darko Milicic (which is hardly a given) they'll likely need a sign-and-trade to bring in any big-name free agent.

But even if his suitors are dropping like flies, it doesn't sound like Dumars is going to play any games trying to lowball Billups:

"You don't worry about outbidding yourself. You worry about someone swooping in out of the blue," Dumars said. "But, like I said, there's a commitment here that we need to go forward with Chauncey as our point guard. Having made that commitment, we'll get it done."

The sooner the better, as far as Pistons fans are concerned.

Previously on FanHouse:
NBA Free Agency Has Arrived
Chauncey Billups' Wife: 'I'm Not Moving to Memphis'
Chauncey Billups Officially Opts Out, Surprises No One