Sean Deveney

Portland shooting guard Brandon Roy was officially given a maximum contract on Thursday. No doubt, in 29 other NBA cities, at the moment Roy put his pen to the contract, an involuntary shudder struck owners. That’s because nothing knocks league payrolls out of whack quite like max contracts, hanging on the necks of mediocre teams like so many albatrosses.

The lure of the max contract is obvious — often a team hands one out in hopes that a very good player will live up to his paycheck, that paying him like a franchise player will somehow nudge him into becoming a franchise player. When that doesn’t work out, the team is forced to give up on useful mid-level players in order to keep feeding the max salary. More than a dozen players in the league have max deals. Not all are worthy of them.

On this day, though, the league’s owners can relax. Roy is the rare player who is getting a max contract, deserves a max contract and will continue to deserve it throughout the length of the deal (which runs five years, with an option).

“Brandon is great,” teammate Greg Oden told Sporting News. “What I like about playing with him is that he likes getting his teammates involved, he knows how to make everyone better. But he can take over when he needs to.”

Entering last season, Roy was simply a pretty good young player who could do a little of everything. By the end of last year, though, it was clear that Roy had made the third-year leap that teams always hope for out of young guys. The difference in his numbers wasn’t enormous — he averaged the same number of rebounds, and slightly fewer assists, while boosting his scoring average from 19.1 to 22.6. But you have to parse the numbers a little more closely to see how much better Roy got last season.

The game seemed to get easier for Roy. He was much more efficient with his scoring, and the ability to make the most out of few shots is one of the marks of a star. He raised his field-goal percentage to 48.0 from 45.4. He shot very well from the 3-point line (37.7 percent), and made 82.4 percent of his free throws. And, he made an adjustment that all great players need to make — he began forcing himself to the free-throw line. Roy made 6.5 trips to the line per game, 17th in the league. That’s up from 4.2 as a rookie and 5.0 in his second year.

“He did so many little things better last year,” said one West scout. “He was a better pick-and-roll player, and he was pretty good at that to begin with. He was a better defender, he took on bigger defensive challenges. And he is a finisher, a clutch player. He just seemed to get it last year.”

Roy is only 25, and there’s still plenty to be cynical about, plenty to you wonder whether his contract eventually will wind up in the dustbin of max messes. He’s made just one playoff appearance, and though he averaged 26.7 points, his Blazers were ushered out in the first round. This, though, is simply the way the collective bargaining agreement is set up. Players are eligible for extensions after their third year, and teams can choose to gamble on them reaching their potential or not. Sometimes it works, and everyone’s happy. Sometimes it doesn’t, with heavy consequences.

The Blazers are gambling on Roy. But they needn’t fear. This one will pay off.

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