Mavericks center Daniel Gafford intends to sign a three-year contract extension, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports. The contract is worth approximately $54MM, Marc Stein tweets.
The extension, which will become official in July, does not include an option in the final year, Grant Afseth of the Dallas Hoops Journal tweets. It’s fully guaranteed and will feature a 5% trade kicker, adds Kelly Iko of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Gafford has one year and $14,386,320 remaining on the three-year contract he signed while a member of the Wizards. His new extension will run through the 2028/29 season.
Gafford appeared in 57 games this season, including 31 starts. He averaged a career-best 12.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per contest. Gafford is a bit undersized at center, listed at 6’10”, but has consistently been one of the NBA’s top shot-blockers since he entered the league in 2019.
Most of the shots that Gafford takes on offense are off lob passes or offensive rebounds. He has a career 70.9% field goal percentage.
The reasonably priced extension could make Gafford a trade chip if Dallas feels the need to trade a big man to balance its roster. As cap expert Yossi Gozlan tweets, Gafford should remain trade-eligible after signing the extension, since his new contract won’t exceed the extend-and-trade limits (20% first-year raise; 5% subsequent raises; four total years, including the current contract). If he were to receive more than $54.3MM on the three-year deal, he would be ineligible to be dealt for six months.
If Gafford remains with the Mavericks, he should be one of the team’s top frontcourt reserves off the bench along with P.J. Washington, presuming that Dereck Lively, Anthony Davis and top pick Cooper Flagg will start.
Did not expect this coming. Very interesting.
Must be nice to be really tall…
Except for airplanes, cars, and buying shoes and pants.
PJ Washington is for sure gone after this.
Cress – good point about PJ being gone. Gotta make room for Cooper Flagg at $15M and Kyrie’s new deal.
Also, 2 of these are prolly gone by mid-season.
Klay Thompson $18M
Najee Marshall $10M
Caleb Martin. $10M
Max Christie: $9M
Martin is really the only one that makes sense to move.
All of a sudden we got aristotle, Mavs “expert”
Gafford can be traded right now. Signed later would have to wait 6 months. Don’t find that odd? Expert, lols.
Mavs if they wait a year or two and get a guard are going to give Rockets a run for the #1 seed. Good time to be a Texas NBA fan.
Nope. I’ll take the field over any of the 3 Texas teams. Easy money
When Kyrie is a 34 year old free agent and Davis is hurt again?
DDC, So many teams are guilty of deceiving themselves about age and availability when offering long-term deals to old guys. So far, it has not worked out.
BIG RISKS ALREADY GONE BAD:
Joel Embiid (how to light $300M on fire)
Paul George ($220M podcaster)
Damian Lillard (a.k.a. “Mr Season Ending Injury”)
Kahwi Leonard ($55M for 20 games per year)
CLOCK IS TICKING ON THESE 36 YR OLD MAXERS:
Jimmy Butler. (history says he can’t play a full season)
Kevin Durant (happy if he plays 50 games/yr)
GETTING OLD, TIME TO CASH IN:
Kyrie Irving: (gets his max during his rehab sabbatical )
Anthony Davis: (“street clothes” averages 49 games per yr since 2019, time to give him his $300M)
Kawhi has failed to reach 52+ games 3 times in his 14 year career.
Durant played 75 in 2023/24 and 62 games in 2024/25.
Your best player missing 20 games could be the difference between getting homecourt in the playoffs or in Durant’s case not even making the playoffs.
As for Kahwi, you neglected to mention that his last 4 seasons have been a disaster
1) 2021-22 he missed the entire season (for the second time in his career)
2) in both 2022-23 and 2023-24, his season ended 2 games into the playoffs. When your #1 guy, who takes up 30% of your cap, can’t stay healthy in the playoffs, you lose.
3) this last season, 2024-25, he played 39 games
As for KD, his season ended prematurely this year, preventing Phoenix from competing for a play-in spot. That’s in addition to averaging 49 games per season for the last 6 years.
Sun’s are a guard only team and Mavs are a forward/center only team now
Maybe they should made a deal centered around PJ Washington and Jaken Green
Honestly was hoping the Warriors would make a run at Gafford. Not much of a passer but does a lot of things very well.
Still available to be traded so who knows!
This contract to me makes him MORE tradable. Now he is locked up in a reasonable contract instead of being a pending free agent.
This is a solid contract for a guy that would be a starter on a lot of teams. Keeps the strong frontcourt tandem together if that was their intention. On the flip side, Gafford is more appealing now to trade partners since he now comes with 4 years of control.
AD historically works better with 5s around him. Probably makes his contract better for them with this kind of deal.