No shock: Pietrus to pick up contract option

Agent Bill McCandless would not have been doing his job had his client, Suns swingman Mickael Pietrus, opted out of his contract this summer and declined a $5.3 million option to be a free agent.

Pietrus waited to decide on the option until Monday afternoon but he is no fool. McCandless said Pietrus will opt in. That does not necessarily mean that he will remain a Sun for the final year of his contract, given Phoenix's overabundance of wing players.

McCandless said he and Pietrus are aware of the possibility of a Suns trade to better balance their roster.

"I'll be surprised if Lon (Babby, Suns president of basketball operations) doesn't make a couple deals on draft day or later," McCandless said. "If you have a surplus in one position and a need in another, guess what?

"But if he (Pietrus) comes back, he's looking forward to having a full training camp. It's not the easiest thing, for any player, to be traded and go from Coaching Style A to Coaching Style B and from Management Style A to Management Style B."

McCandless met with Pietrus today in Orlando to make the decision on the option, which seemingly was an easy one considering it would be hard for Pietrus to command a $5.3 million salary as a free agent regardless but especially with a more restrictive CBA coming.

"Why would the chicken cross the road if the chicken doesn't know what's on the other side?" McCandless said. "Unless you're a real gunslinger, we don't know what to expect from the lockout and how the rules will be. There'd be interest in him but we don't know his value for a piece of the pie or what the pie is."