Suns center Deandre Ayton expects to sign a rookie scale extension before the season-opening deadline, Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic reports.
Ayton is eligible for a five-year, $172.5MM max contract that would kick in at the start of the 2022/23 season.
“Honestly, I’m expecting something to get done so that we as a team can finish what we started, which is bring a championship to Phoenix,” he said. “Period. Literally. That’s all it is.”
Mikal Bridges is also eligible for a rookie scale extension. Suns GM James Jones would not elaborate on either player’s contract situation.
“We’ll address that when the time comes, but for us right now, our focus is training camp and getting ready for the regular season,” Jones said.
The top pick in the 2018 draft, Ayton has averaged a double-double in all three of his seasons. His scoring average dropped last season (14.4 PPG) but his efficiency rose (62.6% from the field). He averaged 10.5 RPG during the regular season.
He ramped up his production during the Suns’ Finals run, averaging 15.8 PPG on 65.8% shooting and 11.8 RPG in 22 games.
Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Michael Porter Jr. have all reached rookie scale max agreements with their respective teams this offseason.
Clearly Ayton deserves his new contract, no doubt about it, but… he certainly took a step backwards last season, so I can’t see him getting the max now, he will get a good contract though, but his performance last season doesn’t put him anywhere near the max!
He’ll get the max. His usage rates dropped, but his efficiency improved. There was no decline in play or ability, just more spreading of the offensive load with CP3.
This draft is insane in terms of talent so far.
Bridges should get a nice extension in the 18-$21 million per range. Ayton maybe in the 16-$18 million range would be the most I would go, but I could see him somehow getting upto $22 million just based on them being capped out anyway, like we’ve seen for a couple of guys
There is absolutely no way that Bridges out earns Ayton.
These paychecks are outrageous but maybe not with stock mergers being in the billions now instead of in the millions.
It is hard to wrap our heads around salaries that are tracking with a cap that expands this quickly, but y’all who think Ayton’s getting less than the max watched year-over-year stats instead of the playoffs.
As Ayton’s said, he sacrificed for the team this year, and he was a double-double machine in the playoffs. We’re going to see that guy coming out the gate this season, now that he‘s tasted the level he’s got to play to.
Matchups lined up for him for a while, but what happened when milwaukee figured out to stop using Brook Lopez 35-40 minutes, and started using him for less than 20 after game 2? Ayton was a significant reason they lost, after losing Saric and then refusing to use Kaminsky
Nothing against Ayton. He has improved, mostly thanks to Chris Paul. I personally dont think yoy should pay bigs more than a certain amount in today’s NBA, unless it is certain people