JULY 8: The Wizards have officially re-signed Kuzma, per Josh Robbins and Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
According to The Athletic’s duo, Kuzma’s four-year deal will actually be worth $90MM guaranteed, with $6MM in unlikely incentives tied to team performance. It won’t contain any team or player options, but it will feature a 15% trade kicker, Robbins and Charania add (via Twitter). It will also have a descending structure, starting at $25.6MM and eventually dipping to $19.4MM by year four.
JUNE 30: The Wizards and forward Kyle Kuzma have agreed to a four-year, $102MM deal that will keep him in Washington, agent Austin Brown tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).
Kuzma is coming off a career year, averaging 21.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists on .448/.333/.730 shooting in 64 games last season (35.0 minutes). His points, assists and minutes per game all represented career highs.
A former late first-round pick (27th overall in 2017), Kuzma won a championship with the Lakers in 2019/20, having spent his first four seasons in Los Angeles. He was sent to the Wizards in the summer of 2021 as part of the Russell Westbrook trade.
It’s an interesting transaction for both Kuzma and the Wizards, who have drastically remade their roster after trading Bradley Beal (to Phoenix) and Kristaps Porzingis (to Boston). Kuzma was looking for a major payday after declining his $13MM player option for 2023/24, and he found a nine-figure deal to remain with Washington.
Kuzma, alongside former Warriors guard Jordan Poole (whom the team acquired for Chris Paul), figures to be a major part of the Wizards’ offense in ’23/24. When engaged, he’s also a solid defensive player, and is still developing in other areas.
Still, it remains to be seen whether or not Kuzma will be in Washington’s long-term plans. The team’s front office — led by president Michael Winger — was completely revamped, so time will tell how they’ll choose to build out the roster.
Rory Maher contributed to this story.
$25.5M a year for Kuz? I guess Winger didn’t learn from previous management’s mistakes.
$25.5 million is good deal for Kuz, he’ll get them a nice return when he gets traded in February.
Well it’s 25 million and not 50 million. And I don’t see a NTC mentioned anywhere so he’s off to a fine start
And it starts high, then drops, so they have extra cash to improve the team after year 2 or 3.
This makes no sense unless they think this contract will have value to sell in February
Yeah totally. Not like Kuzma was linked to half of the teams in the NBA or anything.
This has been the worst offseason in 4+ years in terms of posters that never say anything coming out from their rocks to give ridiculous takes. Just flat out don’t understand how this league operates.
Got paid, and he gets to take the playoffs off. Win/Win
Lebron thinking
Kyle Kuzma 4 years $102 million he caught a bag!!! I’m really happy for him. Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma going to be putting up some crazy scoring numbers.
Was there a need to strike this sort of deal at the start of free agency? Which team with cap space was in danger of swooping in and poaching him at this price level?
I know someone has to score on the Wizards, but I’d feel better about this deal if it were for 3 years instead of 4. And if, like Poole, Kuzma wasn’t such a chucker. Not as easy for the young players to develop offensively when you have multiples of that archetype on the roster.
How does Jordan Poole make more than him lol
Good point.
Poole was assaulted by Draymond Green and Kuzma wasn’t. Warriors overpaid for Poole cause Draymond can’t play well with others sometimes.
Realistically, Kuz probably wont be on the team by the time its ready to seriously compete. The wiz are going to score but unless some sort of miracle happens they wont be winning much. The contract doesn’t look untradeable to me on the outset. Obviously that could change but it could also look like a bargain depending on how Kuz plays.
He’s definitely going to put up numbers, but they will be the type of numbers that will never translate to a contender. The only question is whether a team out there buys them enough to give up something of value in him a few years? It’s possible.
Shea – I’ve posted this before so I’ll keep this one short
Kuz has to be coached more than a typical 27 yr old , he did great with the lakers wearing many shoes( when actively coached ) , ( scoring rebounding spacing , energy ect ect …. But if you give him the keys to just chuck that’s what he’ll do to obtain stats abd all the other good intangibles fall off
He’s got those winning team intangibles tho you just need to ride him hard and push him into the role best needed for the team …. I’m skeptical he finds it in Wash but I think other teams will be willing to gamble on him on a contender
This feels like a discount for someone who can score that high
A lot less than grant and he’s younger and a better scorer
He’s not an efficient scorer tho and was given the green-light all year.
This is a significant amount more than I thought he would get, especially with the current CBA situation
Then you have no clue about NBA fee agency. They said he would get between $25-30 million per year. He got $22.5. He will be a good trade asset going forward.
Kuzma is now the face of the franchise.