"When small forward Richard Jefferson first arrived in San Antonio last summer via trade with Milwaukee, his entrance was met with the shout-from-the-rooftops pomp and circumstance befitting a visiting king.

A year later, Jefferson's decision to re-sign with the Spurs — after opting out of a guaranteed $15.2 million for a shot at free agency — barely merited a whisper.

The Spurs announced Jefferson's return in a spartan news conference Wednesday on a vacant concourse of the AT&T Center. The man of the hour didn't even attend.

Even without the hoopla of a year earlier, general manager R.C. Buford considered it a bottom-line banner day for the Spurs.

"We wouldn't have been as good a team had Richard decided to play someplace else," Buford said. "That's the benefit to us."

If nothing else, Jefferson's second season with the Spurs should come without the sticker shock of his first, when he was the team's fifth-leading scorer at a salary second only to Tim Duncan's. Jefferson's new four-year, $38.9-million deal is good for his own pocketbook in the long-term, and good for the Spurs' 2010-11 payroll in the short.

All along, Jefferson's agent, Todd Eley, said his client chose to enter free agency in order to secure a multi-year contract in lieu of hitting the market next summer, when the NBA's collective bargaining agreement expires and salary rules will be reshuffled."