Eric Bledsoe reaches agreement on five-year deal with Suns

The Phoenix Suns and point guard Eric Bledsoe reached agreement on a five-year, $70-million contract, capping a long, sometimes-tense negotiation to keep him in the desert.

The deal Wednesday is considerably more than the Suns initially offered ($48 million for four years) but well below the five-year, $80 million-plus maximum contract Bledsoe’s agent, Rich Paul, sought for the restricted free agent.

The sides didn’t budge in the negotiations until talks finally progressed in the last few days.

“All summer, I knew that I really would be most comfortable coming back to Phoenix because of the great fans, my Suns teammates and our coaches,” Bledsoe said in a statement released by the team. “I am very happy it was able to work out this way.”

Bledsoe faced an Oct. 1 deadline to sign a $3.7-million qualifying offer to play for the Suns this season, then become an unrestricted free agent.

The Suns see Bledsoe as a critical part of their double point-guard system. He missed much of last season after undergoing his second surgery to repair a meniscus in his right knee. Limited to 43 games last season, 40 as a starter, Bledsoe averaged 17.7 points and 5.5 assists.

When Bledsoe, 24, teamed with fellow point guard Goran Dragic last year, the Suns won two-thirds of their games.

Etc.

Former Serbian center Darko Milicic, known as one of the biggest flops in the history of the NBA draft, is switching from basketball to kickboxing.

The 29-year-old Milicic, who has been without an NBA contract for nearly two years, signed a deal on Wednesday with the World Kickboxing Association to be both its promoter and a competitor.

The 7-foot, 250-pound Milicic, who the Pistons made the second overall pick in the 2003 draft behind LeBron James, spent the first years of his 10 NBA seasons with Detroit winning the 2004 NBA title. He also played for Orlando, Memphis, New York, Minnesota and Boston.

He says: “I won’t go deep into this (kickboxing) if I cannot be devoted to it 100 percent. We will see what happens.”