$1m per game? Thunder sign Gilgeous-Alexander to record $285m extension | Oklahoma City Thunder
Shai Gilgeous-Aalexander and Oklahoma City Thunder agreed with an extension of $ 285 million of $ 285 million which would give it the average salary only one highest season in the history of the NBA, a person who is aware of the agreement on Tuesday.
The person spoke with the Associated Press under the guise of anonymity because the agreement has not been announced publicly and will probably not be before the league moratorium on most of the off -season signatures on Sunday.
ESPN reported on the agreement for the first time.
The news of the agreement comes on Canada Day, an appropriate coincidence for Ontario’s 26 -year -old who comes out of a season like a few others in the history of the NBA.
Not only did Gilgeous -Alexander led the Thunder to his first NBA championship and the best record in the League, but he won the most important individual prizes – winning the honors of the final of the NBA and the score title.
The Supermax extension was not unexpected. It was a matter of timing; He could have concluded an agreement with an even higher total value next summer.
Based on the most recent NBA wage ceiling projections – the exact figures will not be finalized before June 2027 – Gilgeous -Alexander would be about $ 63 million in the first season and almost $ 79 million during the 2030-31 season. This would put him on an average payment of around $ 1 million per regular season, and would be the highest salary in a season in the history of the NBA.
Gilgeous-Alexander did not enter the league with superstar expectations. It was the 11th choice in total in the 2018 draft, and it was exchanged by the Clippers of Los Angeles in Thunder after his recruit year. Since then, he has been on an ascending trajectory, and the director general of Thunder, Sam Presti, thinks that this will continue.
“It has improved every year,” said Presti. “His state of mind allowed him to take these steps and not also – I do not have the impression that his progress is, as, volatile. I do not know if it makes sense, but I do not have the impression that it is constructed on things that cannot be repeated and built again.”
Presti referred to Gilgeous-Alexander as a “basketball artist” because he has emotional intelligence to know when to call on his various gifts.
“I just think he has worked on the left and right brain, and I think that when you think of people who succeed extremely in what they do, they cannot work everything on one side or the other,” said Presti. “People must have – for me, the great people of life, business, sports, of any industry, must be able to access both sides, a creative side and also a very objective side.”
Thunder should be suitors for years. Their best player is in place in the long term, all their main players are under contract until next season and Presti has a multitude of hidden recovery choices in previous trades.
“We certainly still have room to grow,” said Gilgeous-Alexander after the victory of match 7 against the Indiana Pacers. “This is the funny part of this. So many of us can still improve. There are not many of us in the team that are “at our peak” or even nearby. “
