6:11pm: The Thunder’s deal with Robinson-Earl is now official, the club announced in a press release.
4:03pm: The Thunder and second-round pick Jeremiah Robinson-Earl have agreed to a four-year deal, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Charania reports that the agreement is worth $8MM, which is a big number for a player picked in the second round. A four-year, minimum-salary deal for Robinson-Earl would be worth approximately $6.3MM, so it sounds like he’ll earn more than the minimum in at least the first and second years of the deal. It’s unclear how many of the four years will be fully guaranteed.
Robinson-Earl, a 6’9″ forward, averaged 15.7 PPG, 8.5 RPG, and 2.2 APG in 25 games (34.5 MPG) for Villanova as a sophomore in 2020/21, earning Big East co-Player of the Year honors.
Robinson-Earl was selected with the 32nd pick in the draft by the Knicks on behalf of the Thunder. Oklahoma City paid a significant price to move up two spots to nab the 20-year-old, sending New York the 34th and 36th overall picks in the deal.
Although the Thunder could open up a huge chunk of cap room by renouncing their various cap exceptions, it looks like they intend to operate as an over-the-cap team for the time being, which means Robinson-Earl will be signed using a portion of the club’s mid-level exception.
this is the Theo Maledon and Kenrich Williams contract structure. nice, round numbers.
This team is a disgrace. I hope the league penalized Sam Presti 5 first round picks. They can’t just not even try to put a team together. They hate their fans.
Ever since they gave away Harden for next to nothing almost 10 years ago the franchise has been an unmitigated disaster. KD won titles after he left, and then they lost both Westbrook and Chris Paul. Now they have nothing but a bunch of first round picks and a decade worth of wait until next year.
Love the Nova kids, I don’t think you can have enough of them on your team. Good pickup for the Thunder.