What does Lonzo's next contract look like?

[dougthonus]

Lonzo Ball is back, at least back-ish, as a productive, valuable player.

I think we've seen enough that Lonzo will get another contract and that contract will be above the vet min as he looks like a rotation player.

Some key things:
Games played: 23 of 44 - Injuries aren't related to the past, but he continues to be injury prone
Minutes per game: 20.4 - It's slowly rising as the season goes on
Three point %: 33% - Well down from his past playing years, but feels like it might go up with more time
Shot profile: Almost exclusively 3s, he's got 8.8 3pa per 36 and only 1.7 2pa per 36

More subjectively: His defense looks very good. He's still incredibly smart. Everything looks better when he's on the floor.

So rolling all that together, I think it's pretty interesting. You have a guy whom maybe you still have to plan on missing 30-40% of the season, whom maybe or maybe won't be a good three point shooter for you, and whom has a real minute cap, but is great on defense, great at making the overall team better on the floor, and is a great teammate.

The player that comes to mind to compare him to? Alex Caruso. Not as good a defender but still very good, very heady, and adds more in terms of the fast break. Similar minute / injury concerns going forward and you probably aren't sure what you'll get out of his shooting.

Caruso just got 4/81 from OKC and probably has a less scary injury history but also is considerably older. I think it will be really interesting to see what Lonzo gets. There isn't a ton of FA money out there, but I think Lonzo will get someone's full MLE if not more.

[jnrjr79]

Just re: a couple of your observations:

Lonzo has just had the wrist injury, right? So the games played thing is a bit artificially depressed because the Bulls won't play him on back-to-backs. Whether the intention is to get him to back-to-backs for next season and thereafter would seem to have a material impact on his value.

Relatedly, you might think is 3P% is down due to the wrist injury, so maybe he gets dinged a little less in that regard.

My predication would be something like 2-3 years, $10-12M/per if he were to keep up his level of play for the remainder of the season without getting hurt.

[WesPeace]

2 years, with TO for 2nd year, range 10-12M per..

[CROBulls]

Looks like not on Bulls payroll. If he was on Bulls payroll, his entire new contract would be structured by amount of injuries and game played which means he would play for 2 cents entire year. That's by judging his seasons 2022-23 and 2023-24.

[2weekswithpay]

Lonzo would be a perfect non-taxpayer MLE (5.7M) signing if he's willing to take a pay cut to go to a good team. On the market, 8-10M for 2-3 years seems fair. More years and money if Lonzo is willing to make the second half of his contract non-guaranteed.

I believe more NBA teams, the good/smart ones at least are willing to overpay players so they can be used as salary matching in a future trade. I think OKC had this mindset when they gave Caruso 4 years 84M. It wouldn't be difficult for them to match 30M in salary without depleting their depth.

[jordanwilliams6]

2 years $20 million.

Enough to give him a hit of payday but not enough to cripple a team financially long term if things didn’t go well.

Anything longer or for more money is moronic IMO.

[ChettheJet]

The games not played, minutes and shooting are why neither the Bulls nor other any other team is answering the July questions while there is snow on the ground.

Lonzo could get injured before the season ends, it could be his knee. Or for the counter to you pessimists he could build up his minutes, not get injured, only sit out one of backtobacks and look like he could be your starting PG next year. As I've said before, I think he very well cold show his appreciation to the organization for sticking with him for 2 2/3 seasons and the fans that didn't post here about how he was the worst contract in basketball and call to trade him as a dead $20M contract. Then he signs a 2 year deal with incentives that takes into account he got $60M for not playing.

If Lonzo looks like they should resign him they start having options. Unknown today if they can trade Lavine and Vucevic but let's say they go and who knows what they get back. Pencil in Ball as the starting PG, do you give the new bigger contract to Coby, same question applies to Ayo and Giddey. Or depending who comes back in the trades do you resign 0, 1, 2 or 3 of them or any of the trade pieces? Depending on how good AKME are there are a lot of options coming up this summer, who knows which ones they might pick.

[Ben Wilson25]

It’s tantalizing to see him on the floor where his IQ and impact is obvious but I wouldn’t trust his body at all anymore. Now is the time to do something the Bulls never do which is sell high and get something, anything of value (hopefully draft capital). Sure, if he had no other options and wanted to sign a vet minimum contract with team options I’d do that but someone will gamble and give him $10m. How quickly we forget he missed 2 1/2 seasons with a seemingly routine knee injury. I just can’t shake the feeling that knee is a ticking time bomb.

[pipfan]

It's a gamble but if they trade Lavine and Vuc (plus White I hope) I would love to have him back as a vet leader, backup guard and future trade asset if he stays healthy

Ayo/Ball
???/Terry
Matas/Giddy (PLEASE only resign him to be a bench player)
Flagg (I forgot to mention above, we win the lottery)/PWill/Phillips
Smith/????

Plus some minor assets from deal Vuc/Lavine and something for White

Hell, keep Vuc one more year to help the kids. I'd like to see Ayo/Matas/Smith as the beginning of our new 8 man main rotation (maybe PWill too, if he ever grows a pair).
I can even live with Giddy as a high minute bench piece, but he shouldn't start

[SirKaiser]

Damn could you guys imagine if we still had Caruso with a healthy Ball. Well no need to imagine really... we were 1st in the EC.

[kodo]

I don't see a big (fully guaranteed) deal for him. I love Lonzo, but to be real he's a 51% TS scorer. And before everyone writes that off as rust, that's his career average as well. League average is 58% TS. Dalen Terry is 54% TS.

And that's assuming he's 100% healthy from this point forward, which I don't believe. It's been normal with this type of injury to look fine for a season and then have it degrade. Basically nothing's been proven yet to be a breakthrough because the older method (microfracture) would also give you a painfree, healthy player for a year. It's beyond that where microfracture didn't suffice, so we'll have to see if the new cadaver method is really going to work long term.

It's a shame because he's a unique & fantastic player with a high IQ.
I could see a decent contract with a lot of incentives or heavily unguaranteed. Because he's obviously a great defender/passer when he can play.

[dougthonus]

Relative to the opinions in this thread, I would keep Lonzo on any of the deals cited here. I think the floor for him will be full MLE on the open market, but it will be interesting to see. I'm not sure how people will view his past injuries in the marketplace.

[sco]

Yeah, I think there's a decent chance he nabs something like either 3/$60 or 4/$60 with the premise being teams might pay up for fewer years and cut their risk or pay the MLE.

My interest in him is predicated on not tanking, but we're committed to trading Zach, I think you let Ball walk.

[coldfish]

He is probably uninsurable.

My guess is zero dollars for zero years. Mybe some team takes a cheap flyer on him.

[drosestruts]

Bulls this season are +9.5 per 100 possesions when Lonoz in on the court and -5.9 when he's off the court.

This stat is going to be more impactful on his contract than his 3p% or TS%

His lineup stats are ridiculous - of his 10 most played 5-man combos, 9 of them have a positive +/-

It's a similar story for his 4-mna, 3-man, and 2-man lineups.

When Lonzo is on the court - we win.

[jnrjr79]

2 years $20 million.

Enough to give him a hit of payday but not enough to cripple a team financially long term if things didn’t go well.

Anything longer or for more money is moronic IMO.

The other thing you could do is give him a Zion-type of contract where the next year becomes non-guaranteed if he doesn't play X number of games per season. I think he's shown he can contribute on the court, so you'd just want to be protected from another long-term injury.

[jnrjr79]

He is probably uninsurable.

My guess is zero dollars for zero years. Mybe some team takes a cheap flyer on him.

If this were a bet, this would be pretty easy money IMO. He's not going to wash out of the league and most teams aren't going to care about insurability at a relatively low AAV.

[dougthonus]

He is probably uninsurable.

My guess is zero dollars for zero years. Mybe some team takes a cheap flyer on him.

Man, I don't think there's any way this is true.

[HomoSapien]

I'm not sure, to be honest. How many teams can afford to make him a key rotation player if he's expected to miss 20-30 games right off the bat.
We surprisingly have enough guard depth to weather the storm. I would love to have him back, but his contract would have to have a lot of incentive based components as well as team options.

[Indomitable]

He is probably uninsurable.

My guess is zero dollars for zero years. Mybe some team takes a cheap flyer on him.

Man, I don't think there's any way this is true.

2 year deal with a mutual option for last year at 10 million per.