SEPTEMBER 18: The Lakers have put out a press release officially announcing Vanderbilt’s extension.
SEPTEMBER 15: The Lakers and forward Jarred Vanderbilt are in agreement on a four-year contract extension that will be worth $48MM, agents Rich Paul and Erika Ruiz tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). According to Charania, the deal will be fully guaranteed, with a fourth-year player option.
Vanderbilt, who became extension-eligible last week, was entering the final year of his current contract, a team-friendly deal that will pay him just shy of $4.7MM in 2023/24. The extension will keep him under club control through at least the 2026/27 season, with the player option applying to ’27/28.
The NBA’s veteran extension rules typically allow players to receive up to 140% of their previous salary in the first year of an extension. However, players like Vanderbilt who are earning less than the league’s estimated average salary are eligible to receive up to 140% of the average salary. That rule will allow him to receive an eight-digit starting salary in his extension, more than doubling his previous cap hit.
Vanderbilt, 24, has played for the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Jazz, and Lakers since being drafted 41st overall in 2018. He’s a relatively limited offensive player – his 7.9 points per game in 2022/23 represented a career high – but is a talented, versatile defender who rebounds well (7.5 RPG in 24.1 MPG last season).
Vanderbilt is expected to play a major rotation role for the Lakers again this season after being acquired along with D’Angelo Russell and Malik Beasley in the trade-deadline deal that sent Russell Westbrook to Utah. He started 24 of 26 regular season games for Los Angeles following that trade, averaging 24.0 minutes per night.
Having entered the offseason with only LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Vanderbilt, and Max Christie under contract for 2023/24, the Lakers have locked in several key players to multiyear deals this summer. Like Vanderbilt, Davis signed an extension that will be guaranteed through at least 2027, while Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves, and Gabe Vincent all signed free agent contracts that include three guaranteed seasons.
Including James and Russell, who both have players option decisions to make next summer, the Lakers now project to have seven players earning eight-figure salaries in 2024/25, notes Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Since Vanderbilt’s new deal will exceed the extend-and-trade limits, he’ll be ineligible to be traded for six months, meaning the Lakers won’t be able to move him during the 2023/24 season.
Like this move a lot. Vanderbilt is a great player, a wing and big who plays elite defense. He’s not a good offensive player, but he does enough to avoid dipping into liability territory.
The thing about Vanderbilt that interests me is that he does that thing that guys like Giannis, Butler, and Rui do, who aren’t great at threes but will instead cut towards the rim as soon as they receive a pass if they’re not wide open. It essentially forces teams to close out on them even without being good shooters. And Vanderbilt took a decent step forward last season as a shooter (given that he was literally nothing before that, league-average from the corner and a developing short game helps). He also showed some ability to find the open man in Utah. He’s also still just 24. Great upside play for the Lakers that won’t bite them even if he stays the same as he was last year for the rest of his career, given how relatively inexpensive and easily tradeable the contract is.
Great player that is elite defensively but not good offensively… Bill Russell, Dennis Rodman,…
Hall-of-Famers.
Jarred Vanderbilt is a great player?
Dennis Rodman was one of the all-time outliers (seriously, trying to compare anyone to Rodman is fruitless), and Russell averaged 15 ppg in an era where the average score was under 90 for either team, so he wasn’t “not good”.
Great, not elite or crazy or star, or whatever word you want to use. Vando is a valuable player who plays his role at a high level and has upside. Sounds pretty great to me.
Are you seriously nitpicking adjectives? What is this, high school English class?
Eads…
Certainly not nitpicking adjectives. Just questioning your hoops IQ and sincerity of your comment if you’re calling Jarred Vanderbilt at great player.
That’s all.
High school English class? Good one.
Are you one of those guys that played JV in the 11th grade and still carrying that chip on your shoulder with your social media comments?
A great *roleplayer*, then, which I assumed would be obvious by context. Did you really think that I meant he’s some generational player? It’s Jarrod Vanderbilt signing for 48 mil.
The fact that I even have to explain this is depressing.
When it comes to players that play that hard I think some hyperbole is okay. I think “great” is used in the context of cost and particular skill set. He is making 4 million, he’s great for 4 million. He’s great at rebounding and energy.
Also from a fit perspective, yeah. And 12 mil doesn’t really change that. That’s about the same as the full middy.
I would also just use “star” or “elite” to describe better players. Not reading past the first sentence and instantly taking issue with my diction is just lazy.
Really , great is reserved for the likes of Chamberlain,Kareem and the Jordan’s of the NBA world not Jarred Vanderbilt. The dilution of nba talent continues.
I think of more specific words than you, apparently.
No you apparently feel surrounding your bogus great comments with a salad of limited statistics somehow masks the nonsense of that notion. The kid is still a prospect,still trying to establish himself. Hasn’t done anything in this league. Average at best. Stop being so full of yourself.
Sir, this is a Wendys.
Am I the only one that feels they will be better next year when LeBron becomes a free agent? They could bring in a scorer to take LeBron’s place and be a better team on defense.
I don’t think anyone can take over for his playmaking and leadership as well (plus LeBron was still a *slight* positive on defense last year, unlike a lot of score-first guys). And there were only eight guys who matched or exceeded LeBron’s scoring (29 ppg) last season, all of them superstars in their own right, and three of them (Luka, Lillard, and Steph) were worse on defense than LeBron, with Tatum arguably being worse as well given that they contested about the same numbers of shots per game and Tatum had worse results overall (yes, really. I’m not making this up. Look up the numbers if you don’t believe me). It’d kind of hard to overstate how much he brings to the table, even with some flaws.
Though if you get a guy who plays more games, it’s more arguable that way (though a lot of the big time guys didn’t come close to him either)
*don’t play that many more games than him, jesus edit function.
Reason I say that is LeBron is a ball hog. Many times he hogs on to the ball than makes a pass at the last moment to a shooter that is well guarded. His defense is below average now because of age. Lebron will be a better player if they drop him down to 30 minutes a game. You could see last year in 4th quarter his FG% went way down.
If you score 25+ ppg, you basically have to be a ball-hog. Nobody has that and a usage of less than 28%, except Jokic (LeBron is at 33%). And LeBron’s assist rate is higher than all of those guys except a small handful of actual point guards (Luka, Trae, Ja, and Lillard, and nobody else; even Jokic is slightly below him in that regard, plus all except Trae have a higher usage rate than him).
That’s what I mean about his playmaking. He’s essentially a second point guard without the defensive weakness that automatically entails. And he’s not as good as he was on D, for sure, but he’s still not a negative on that end. He’s not even a net neutral. All his contest numbers are above-average, including the number of contests he has per game.
His BBIQ is the lowest
Arc is 100 correct
WOW! I was expecting an overpay, but lakers really got this guy at the right price.
Damn this Lakers off season has been surprisingly good…