George O'Brien said:From what I can tell, the problem was not the per year amount (although they offered what they could) but the length of Hunter's contract. That hasn't changed. The Suns simply didn't want to make that kind of committment.
it was both. They did not have Bird rights for Steven Hunter, so they could not offer him more than the LLE. Remember that they had given Bell almost the entire mid-level exception.
Joe Mama