81.45 million a year! Thunder's troubles, are they going to start slowly?

Basketball Big History Ball

2024-05-23 22:41Published in Fujian

The annual best lineup is officially announced.

As most fans expected, this year's top five are: Antetokounmpo, Doncic, Alexander, Jokic, and Tatum

Best Second Team: Brunson, Bushy Eyebrows, Durant, Edwards, Leonard

Best three: Booker, Curry, Haliburton, James, Sabonis Jr

Unlike the All-Defensive Team, the All-Defensive Team is directly linked to the players' salaries, and this result directly benefited four players, namely Haliburton, Edwards, Doncic, and Alexander.

Among them, Edwards and Haliburton signed a five-year 204 million contract extension with their parent team last offseason, and this contract includes a designated rookie clause, that is, if they are selected to the best team this season, their contracts can rise to 5 years and 245 million, more than 40 million more than the original.

Doncic has been selected for the fifth consecutive year, so he has met the conditions of the designated veteran clause extension in advance, and he will be eligible to sign a five-year, 346 million contract with the Mavericks in 2025, which will be the largest contract in history, with five-year salaries of 59.71 million, 64.49 million, 69.27 million, 74.04 million, and 78.82 million respectively.

Alexander, like Doncic, was selected to the All-NBA team for two consecutive years, so he met the designated veteran clause in advance, the difference is that because Alexander's current contract has a non-player option in the final year (26-27 season), he can only sign a four-year, 294 million contract in the summer of 2025, with salaries of 65.69 million, 70.94 million, 76.2 million and 81.45 million respectively.

Counting the 39.27 million in the 2026-27 season of the current contract, Alexander can get a total of 334 million in the 2026-31 season, without Doncic's more than 346 million, but Alexander can become the first player in history to reach an annual salary of $80 million.

Three of the above four are still in the division finals, and their contracts are definitely worth it, and although Alexander is out, no one should doubt whether Alexander is worth it.

In the regular season this season, Alexander played a total of 75 games, averaging 30.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 2.0 steals per game, ranking third in the league in scoring and first in the league in steals, with a three-point shooting rate of 53.5%/35.3%/87.4% and a true shooting rate of 63.6%.

While averaging 30+ per game, Alexander also delivered center-level efficiency as a defender, and he is different from most guards in his home era, not a player who relies on three-pointers, and don't forget, Alexander's defense is also very good, and he was almost selected for the best defensive team.

The most important thing is that Alexander led the Thunder from missing the playoffs last year to directly promoted to the first place in the West, and his ability to lead the team has also been proven, which is why Alexander ranked second in this year's MVP vote, second only to Jokic, and he and Jokic are also the only two unanimous votes.

Although he lost to the Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs, in his first trip to the playoffs, Alexander's performance was still supergiant, he played a total of 10 games, averaging 30.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.4 assists per game, and also had 1.3 steals and 1.7 blocks, shooting 49.6%/43.2%/79.0% from three, and 58.2% from the field.

Among them, from the second round G2 to G6, Alexander got 30+ in 5 consecutive games, but the role players of the Thunder in the second round were abnormal, and the three-point level was seriously inferior to the regular season, and Alexander, who did not receive enough support, lost to Doncic's Mavericks and went out.

For the Thunder, the future is certainly wonderful, but there are problems.

The 25-year-old Alexander is undoubtedly the team's ace, his signing of a super-max salary is a foregone conclusion, the team's second-in-command Jayway and third-leader Holmgren are also full of talent, and the two are likely to be selected as All-Stars next season, in addition, Giddey, Isaiah Joe, Dort, Wiggins, Carson Wallace and others also have good standards.

As the players grow, the Thunder will inevitably encounter salary problems in the future, including Giddey facing an early contract extension in the offseason, and Jay and Holmgren have the opportunity to sign an early salary cap next summer.

So, don't look at the Thunder young, young also have young "happy troubles", their rookie bonus period is actually only two years left, the next two years will be the best opportunity for this Thunder team to compete for the championship, I hope the team can make good use of the draft picks in their hands to bring in reinforcements, don't delay Alexander's peak time.

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