The defending champion Thunder and All-Star forward Jalen Williams have agreed to a maximum-salary rookie scale extension that covers five years, agents Bill Duffy and Justin Haynes tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
Jordan Richard of Swish Cultures was first to report the news (via Twitter).
Williams’ new five-year extension is fully guaranteed and does not feature a player or team option, according to Kelly Iko of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Williams’ extension will kick in during the 2026/27 campaign and he will earn at least 25% of that season’s salary cap. Based on the NBA’s latest cap projection, that would work out to a five-year, $240MM deal.
I used the term “at least” because all three reports state that Williams could earn more than that (up to $287MM), which implies his new deal has Rose Rule language that would make him eligible for a starting salary worth up to 30% of next season’s cap if he meets certain performance criteria, such as making an All-NBA team.
The 24-year-old wing is coming off a career-best season in which he averaged 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.6 steals in 32.4 minutes per game across 69 outings, with a .484/.365/.789 shooting line. He earned a spot on the All-Defensive second team, as well as the All-NBA third team.
Despite that All-NBA nod in 2025, Williams has not yet met the Rose Rule performance criteria — he will have to achieve the performance criteria again in 2026 to reach that higher salary.
Williams averaged 21.4 points per game for the Thunder during their postseason run to a championship despite dealing with a torn scapholunate ligament in his right wrist, which he underwent surgery to address. He recently said he was dealing with a wrist sprain for most of last season and tore the ligament on April 9.
Charania reported on Wednesday that Williams and the Thunder had “momentum” on an extension. Oklahoma City also agreed to five-year, maximum-salary deal with big man Chet Holmgren on Wednesday, though his rookie scale extension does not appear to contain Rose Rule language.
The Thunder have now locked up MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren to long-term mega-deals this offseason, with SGA officially signing his super-max extension on Tuesday.
Well deserved…
Fantastic for the players but let’s do the math. If Jalen gets 25% of the cap and so does Chet, plus SGA 35% of the cap, that’s 85% of the cap for three guys?
Now what?
Thier new line will be apon 2 to stay under
Cap NeXT year is 165 and apron 2 is 223 so theres 58 mill there + the 15% essentially as operating room
Now Okc currently sits at 245 but if you take out IHart 28.5 team option and KWillams 7 team option you sit at 210 with 12 roster spots already filled (Dienge RFA drops off too)
So about 12 M to fill 2 or 3 spots if they want to get to 15. Enough for drafted rookies and even use of the Taxpayer MLE (5.7) will all be avail too OKC next year while staying easily under apron 2
Gets a little harder year after with Dort ext but still plenty doable if they can keep him 25 M or under ….They can still parcel out Joe too at any time and shave 12 M which is also V likely Imo
Probably. Although based on the composition of their payroll and draft picks, they could probably operate without regard to the Aprons, as long as they are willing to absorb the luxury tax and OK with their remote FRPs being downgraded. They can avoid transactions triggering the hard cap (aggregation would be helpful, but not required).
I totally agree they should just zip past ALL lines and go for it but I see them setting Apron 2 as their de facto Do Not Cross line
JW probably gets Rose Ruled next year making the math a tad more complicated but Yea if it came time to pony up for Dort and it means crossing Apron 2 , agreed DO IT
I would never break up, or severely compromise, any championship team over luxury tax, even if it meant operating at a deficit. Sell off pieces of the team if need be. Championship windows end soon enough, and nobody knows if and when another will open. So many teams in this league (and they’re talking expansion) and so little impact talent (that is not expanding).
I bet they’ll make a trade if they are projected to be over the 2nd apron … won’t be for awhile and they have so much draft capital, they are sitting in a good spot.
But I concur, if you have a championship team, you don’t dismantle it unless you are a cheap owner/ownership group.
Joe will be gone Ajay Mitchell could take his spot in future.
Topic is not a defender but he will get minutes if he develops.
They won’t overpay to keep Dort, but will pay Cason.
IHart was paid a lot likely knowing the team option gets declined. He can sign or less or find another team as Jaylin and Sorber may replace him.
Caruso has a cheap deal he is staying.
Wiggins does more overall than Joe so he can stick around.
They have picks and have history of developing undrafted or 2nd round players. This is hardly a team to worry about finding players.
Crunch, IMO, OKC’s biggest point of suffering for OKC over the next 6 years will be an inability to pay rookie extensions to their high draft picks.
– Cason Wallace, a lottery pick 2 yrs ago, is their 6th or 7th man, rookie extension eligible in 12 months. He won’t be cheap.
– Nikola Topic missed his rookie year, is 2 years away from a rookie extension.
– Thomas Sorber #15 FRP this year.
– 4 FRP’s next season, 3 FRP’s the next, etc
There will be
A dude will flake off every now and then and they will prolly just have another Rook making >4 M to step in
It’s in my belief OKC will have very very very minimal problems navigating the cap the next 5+ years
As DXC astutely noted above even the 2nd apron isnt even a REAL burden to them as they will always control RFA and Bird rights inside the organization to do whatever they want and more importantly cross or don’t cross whatever apron they like without any outside help or buffers needed. I dont think they will cheap tho and while Im not a Presti truther the guy knows the value of a good coupon clipping when available
With so many deep playoff runs probable the next 5 years they SHOULD be crossing apron 2 every now and then without any thoughts. I don’t like to spend other peoples money but the problem with losing [players lies solely within OKC’s powers (wallet) – No pity for cheapies when a potential dynasty awaits
85% of the cap is not 85% of what the team can spend. There’s quite a bit of room from 85% of the salary cap until the 2nd apron, which is becoming a de facto hard cap that the teams don’t want to cross.
Also, if the salaries are going up by 8%, but the cap is going up by 10%, it will leave the team with more room each year.
I think this year Curry made 39% of the cap, rather than the max 35%, because his salary was going up by a standard 8% each year, which was a higher rate than the cap increase.
With the COVID years behind, the cap is projected to go up by 10% each year, “outrunning” the salary increases, making those 8% hikes more manageable.
thanks for explaining, very helpful.
i don’t think anyone is going to feel sorry for a team that has to fill out a roster around SGA, Chet, and JWill. They have the best foundation in the league by far and a ton of draft picks. They are in great shape both short- and long-term.
No one should feel sorry about OKC :)
They are in the best position among all 30 teams, no matter how you look at it, including financially.
This! Presti maybe great but the CBA and time has never been defeated. Watch them have a similar fire sale similar to the Holiday and Porzingis trades in about 2-3 years.
JDubs deal is the nail in the coffin confirming that OKC will only be in this form for 3 years at most
@aristotle wrote up a pretty good analysis on their salary cap room in the Chet extension article you might want to check out (can’t copy and paste on the app)
I think they def have room to continue building that team, but most likely this core will be broken up on their next extensions as it won’t be feasible to sign all 3 again if they are looking at another max contract. The Warriors big 3 of the Splash Bros + Dray that’s the most recent example, as they had to break it up to continue being competitive with that aging core.
Gary, they’ll have about $100M of payroll and exceptions 2027-28 after paying the Big 3 for the rest of the roster.
Don’t forget they have like 400 1st round picks in the next few years to help balance their roster with talent while paying the people the need to pay.
JDub earned it and played through playoffs with complete torn wrist ligament in dominate hand.
We’ll see how much the owner is willing to spend when they get bounced in the 2nd round next season.
Still better than getting bounced in the first round *shrugs*
Nobody in the West caught up to OKC, only way they get bounced in the 2nd round is a major injury to Williams or Shai.
Repeating is hard. We will see if they have the same success dealing with the problems all defending champs face.
They got taken to 7 games in the 2nd round against the Nuggets a month after they fired their coach.
They still won. Williams, Wallace and Holmgren are still ascending. They’re adding Topìc. I’m Not saying they’ll repeat but right now they’re still better than everyone else.
Yes, and they looked as if the series was to be replayed, they would win in 4 or 5.
After watching those 7 games, nothing I saw tells me that Denver is close to OKC.
This is where all these draft picks will come into play. They’ll don’t have to go Nets 5 picks but grabbing 2 guys each year in the first or moving up for a guy they like to replace guys when they come off contracts like… Hart, Caruso, Dort, Wiggins, Joe.
Agreed. I think they’ll stay competitive until at least 2031 when this core’s contract are up.
I don’t see them letting Dort walk. He sets the tone for the defense. They’ll give him his bag.
link to hoopshype.com
OKC team salary is at 186.4 mill this year….
Next year they have players they will pay. And Williams contract will kick in. IHart has a 28 mill TO. That isn’t going to be picked up with Sorber on team. That’s why Sorber was such a great pick. Bulls and Hawks passed on him.
Wallace, IHart, Topic, K Williams, Dort all have Team Options in 2026-27. And Caruso is signed at 20 mill plus thru 2028-29. Who eventually they will move too. Thunder are at cap for next 3-5 yrs. They probably can keep their core and some younger players. But they will need to keep hitting on their picks to stay deep. Not easy winning as a young team and stay winning. Warriors did as an older than Thunder team. Then were able to sign KD. They paid the tax for years. Even after KD left. Its why we have this new cap.
Like I been saying for years. No star should get more than 30% of the cap. That should be max they can make. This way you have a better chance of keeping team together for a longer run. Not like the Celtics. Where you win then you have to break up team.
And I can tell you right now. The Nuggets are a better team this year. The Rockets are also capable of coming out the West. Those are the two best challengers to OKC imo. There are other teams that can take out Thunder in playoffs. So it will be hard to win another or two. Thunder have the talent to do it. They will definitely be challenged next couple years. Thunder stars are super young. So you can retool around them again. For another run. West is tough.
What were you feelings after watching Denver play OKC 7 games? Mine were that Denver were lucky to get to game 7 and won a couple of games they had no business winning, like that first game that was OKC’s to lose, and the 3rd one where OKC shot horribly despite Denver’s lackluster defending, and still went to OT.
To me, OKC vs Minnesota series was a much better representation of how good Oklahoma were compared to everyone else.
Next season is next season, everything can happen, but this year OKC were out of reach, and the gap was huge.
Denver and Indiana were lucky because they stole game 1 or series are done in 5!!
@ Peter
Reality says 2 7 game series vs a Denver team with 2 injured starters and their 6th man needing surgery, and the Pacers’ leader hampered all series by a calf injury that became an Achilles tear = the gap was marginal.
They did go through two 7-game series, that’s a fact. But the content is important. OKC made Indiana and especially Denver look lost and out of ideas for large portions of those games. OKC looked much better and were outplayed in only a handful of games – game 6 vs Denver, game 3 vs Minnesota, games 3 and 6 vs Indiana. Other games they lost largely because they were shooting bricks, despite being solid otherwise. And they didn’t steal any wins, were genuinely better, maybe other than that one game against Memphis, but that series was whatever.
That was my feeling.
As to injuries, the effect they had can’t be quantified. We can’t say that Denver’s injuries diminished them by 30% while OKC’s injuries diminished them by 15%.
This is the 90s Bulls who had 2 different teams built around MJ and Pippen with Phil as coach. They are the only two Bulls with 6 rings for a reason. Only difference is they won’t have an 8 year stretch but just the 6. The Thunder’s tax bill is $183M for 2026-27 but guess what, Hartenstein, Kenrich Williams, Dort and Cason Wallace are $63M in team options. Hart was overpaid significantly to be a role player off bench. They don’t bring him back and tax bill shrinks significantly. Isaiah Joe is an $11M expiring contract, if they trade him with a pick or two and don’t bring back Hart, they have the almost same team as they did this year and are a non tax paying team again.
The way Presti built this is genius. SGA doesn’t have a player option for 26-27 like most guys would and do who signed those extensions so he’s locked in at $40M 2 seasons from now. That’s why this works for the next 2 years and then in 27-28 you swap out expensive players for vet minimums (Bruce Brown and Hardaway, Jr just went to Denver on those) and you have to hit on some of those draft picks!