Steve Aschburner of the Star Tribune reports that after their loss to Dallas in the playoffs, Chauncey Billups urged management to keep the team intact next season and said he planned to fulfill the final year of his contract. Now, Billups has changed his mind.

Billups has opted out of the third year of his contract and will be a free agent on July 1st. Because the Wolves are over the salary cap and Billups qualifies as an "early Bird" free agent under NBA rules, the maximum the Wolves could offer him is a six-year deal, beginning at the average player salary (about $4.5 million) and totaling $35.4 million.

Had he played the 2002-03 season under his current deal -- for $2.7 million -- he would have been eligible to re-sign with the Wolves for seven years, for any amount up to the NBA's maximum salary for sixth-year players (more than $10 million in the first season).

Billups said after the playoffs, ?The only way you get better is if you stay together. Hopefully, we will all be back in this locker room next year." But his increased production in the playoffs and uncertainty about Terrell Brandon?s knee injury might have increased his market value.