Cade Cunningham, Pistons Agree To Five-Year, $224M Extension With Rose Designation

[RealGM Wiretap]

Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons have agreed to a five-year, $224 million extension that could be worth as much as $269 million if he makes an All-NBA team this season.

In 62 games last season, Cunningham averaged 22.7 points, 4.3 rebounds and 7.5 assists with a PER of 16.9.

Cunningham was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft out of Oklahoma State.

Cunningham is represented by Jeff Schwartz andJames Dunleavy. 

Via Adrian Wojnarowski/ESPN

[niha17]

hes injured alot and the pistons suck not worth it at all

[gottamakeit]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

[dubbmotta]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

Our maybe he's getting paid because no1 else wants to get paid to play in Det? Teams like this have to pay players for them to stay.dude then had 3 coaches in 3 years..not his fault.

[NUMBERICA]

Nice work including his very weirdly low PER.

[Cassius]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

Or

If you're a "billionaire genius" in one area of life, then use your big brain to be a genius in this part of your life, too. All of the uber-capitalists who own teams will die on the hill of deregulation until an employee starts making 5 cents/hour more than their worth.

[7r5ur]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

What a ridiculous idea. In this fantasy world, every player would refuse to go to teams with bad rosters. Every agent of a top player in the draft would be telling the bad teams at the top of the draft that their player won't play for them.

You can't dock a player's pay because they play for a bad front office.

[Pickled Prunes]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

Our maybe he's getting paid because no1 else wants to get paid to play in Det? Teams like this have to pay players for them to stay.dude then had 3 coaches in 3 years..not his fault.

Well, it's not the coach's fault either. It doesn't matter how good the coach or individual players are if the bulk of your roster is G-League talent. I do find the self-evaluation in DET a little suspect when you fire a coach for a losing streak and you reward a player that was on the court for that streak with the maximum possible dollars allowed by the CBA.

[HotelVitale]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance. Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

I dunno, there are like 30-40 people making max salaries, then about 80 making between the max and around the MLE, then about 40 making MLE-ish money, and another 100 or so making between MLE money and high vet minimum ($3m+). Then another 100 making less, young guys and end of bench types trying to stick on a team.

That seems about right. Each team having 1-1.5 max guys, 2-3 middle guys/good starters, 1.5-2 average starter/rotation guys, 3 or so solid but below average rotation guys. That's most of the rotations of each team, then some cheaper guys rounding the roster that you hope you can get some bargain contributions from. Cade might end up being a bad contract since he has a limited record of being a good player, but most contracts seem pretty logical for teams.

[deeps6x]

Who cares who he is represented by. Does anyone posting here care?

[_txchilibowl_]

Who cares who he is represented by. Does anyone posting here care?

I'm sure Woj posted his tweet with the RealGM message boards in mind....

Calm down, brother.

[gottamakeit]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

What a ridiculous idea. In this fantasy world, every player would refuse to go to teams with bad rosters. Every agent of a top player in the draft would be telling the bad teams at the top of the draft that their player won't play for them.

You can't dock a player's pay because they play for a bad front office.

Simply wrong.

There is a hard cap now with the second apron. Good teams are spending near the 1st apron. Any player looking for their first contract isn't looking to go to a good team where they would have lower usage and lower pay. I want to see less guaranteed money. More team-performance-based bonuses accounting for a larger proportion of player salaries. Other leagues do it.

[7r5ur]

Who cares who he is represented by. Does anyone posting here care?

Woj has to give the shoutout to the guys that feed him info.

[gottamakeit]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance. Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

I dunno, there are like 30-40 people making max salaries, then about 80 making between the max and around the MLE, then about 40 making MLE-ish money, and another 100 or so making between MLE money and high vet minimum ($3m+). Then another 100 making less, young guys and end of bench types trying to stick on a team.

That seems about right. Each team having 1-1.5 max guys, 2-3 middle guys/good starters, 1.5-2 average starter/rotation guys, 3 or so solid but below average rotation guys. That's most of the rotations of each team, then some cheaper guys rounding the roster that you hope you can get some bargain contributions from. Cade might end up being a bad contract since he has a limited record of being a good player, but most contracts seem pretty logical for teams.

Excellent post.

Ask yourself this question, do the bottom 10 teams really need "1-1.5 max guys" to field a competent team. I think most GMs should/would be able to construct a team using average level starter level players to outperform bottom dwelling teams.

I acknowledge that it's tough to acquire starter level talent starting from scratch but i think that due to the lack of fluidity of the free agent market, Its highly inefficient. Bad players getting paid, good players settling for scraps. I just think the NBA could be in a much better place if they cared to radically redesign aspects of the CBA (free agency/contracts/rookie extentions/max-salaries).

You can point to the NBA's history and struggles to maintain competitive balance, and say that's why we have the system we do. But i don't think the future of the NBA should be based on slowly iterating on the past CBAs

[7r5ur]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

What a ridiculous idea. In this fantasy world, every player would refuse to go to teams with bad rosters. Every agent of a top player in the draft would be telling the bad teams at the top of the draft that their player won't play for them.

You can't dock a player's pay because they play for a bad front office.

Simply wrong.

There is a hard cap now with the second apron. Good teams are spending near the 1st apron. Any player looking for their first contract isn't looking to go to a good team where they would have lower usage and lower pay. I want to see less guaranteed money. More team-performance-based bonuses accounting for a larger proportion of player salaries. Other leagues do it.

I'll say it again. You cannot cap a player's salary because the front office of their team wants to tank.

It's a flat out horrible idea to say that one player can't make as much as some comparable player that plays on a team that has more talent. Ludicrous. Cade has no control over the roster.

[HotelVitale]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance. Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

I dunno, there are like 30-40 people making max salaries, then about 80 making between the max and around the MLE, then about 40 making MLE-ish money, and another 100 or so making between MLE money and high vet minimum ($3m+). Then another 100 making less, young guys and end of bench types trying to stick on a team.

That seems about right. Each team having 1-1.5 max guys, 2-3 middle guys/good starters, 1.5-2 average starter/rotation guys, 3 or so solid but below average rotation guys. That's most of the rotations of each team, then some cheaper guys rounding the roster that you hope you can get some bargain contributions from. Cade might end up being a bad contract since he has a limited record of being a good player, but most contracts seem pretty logical for teams.

Excellent post.

Ask yourself this question, do the bottom 10 teams really need "1-1.5 max guys" to field a competent team. I think most GMs should/would be able to construct a team using average level starter level players to outperform bottom dwelling teams.

I acknowledge that it's tough to acquire starter level talent starting from scratch but i think that due to the lack of fluidity of the free agent market, Its highly inefficient. Bad players getting paid, good players settling for scraps. I just think the NBA could be in a much better place if they cared to radically redesign aspects of the CBA (free agency/contracts/rookie extentions/max-salaries).

You can point to the NBA's history and struggles to maintain competitive balance, and say that's why we have the system we do. But i don't think the future of the NBA should be based on slowly iterating on the past CBAs

Thanks, though I have to admit I had a hard time telling where you were going with this post. What do you mean when you say 'bad players getting paid, good players settling for scraps'? I don't think the system as is is terrific or that others wouldn't work, but I think you might be taking a few unusual examples and making them the norm here. Most players who get paid big are at least top-50 guys and it makes sense for those type guys to get those contracts. And good players generally get paid quit well, it's pretty rare for solid veterans who are at least average starters to not get good coin.

Also sure bad teams could probably field not-horrible teams if they wanted to, but teams are generally really bad because they're trying to rebuild around young players. So it's often not useful or productive to bring in medium-level vet talent. (Also also, many tanking teams DON'T have max-level guys at all, those are averages so not every team follows them exactly.)

[Luv those Knicks]

If Cade was on a winning team, he'd be playing less and he's probably sign for less. The Pistons don't have a ton of young talent on their roster right now, so I don't hate this for them. Teams have minimum salary caps, so they have to pay someone. I suppose they could do sign and trades and add picks that way or sign free agents, and they've done that some.

What will they offer Ivey & Duran next year or two? At some point they have to start thinking about how to build a team and who to pay, but I don't think this is a terrible move for them. It relies on Cade getting better. He was just 22 last year, so that's possible.

They don't have enough young talent where they're likely to push up against one of the aprons anytime soon. I think this is more a case of rolling the dice on a young player. I get people saying he's not earned it, and that's valid but I don't think the Pistons are risking that much. It's different if a team pays the wrong guy and has to lose the right one a year later, but the Pistons don't have enough guys demanding top dollar.

[Alex_84]

Rockets are only team that wanna postpone this to next summer regarding Green and Alpi. Because next season they can offer both of them this kind of money - plus they will have a room to bring another star if they prefer. If they extend both of them now, their hands will be tied in FA next summer.

Hopefully Rockets will not crumble under pressure of other teams actually giving max extensions to 2021 class. Cade being the latest in line

[purpleswordfish]

Who cares who he is represented by. Does anyone posting here care?

The people representing him deserve recognition for getting him this deal. He certainly didn't earn it on the court.

[puja21]

Players need to prove they can win before teams offer these giant extensions.
Once again teams need to be saved from themselves. CBA needs mechanisms allowing contracts to be closely tied to team performance.

Too many albatross contracts out there killing the "NBA-Middle Class". Need to bring back the annual amnesty provision.

OK but is this so different from other top picks not winning alone?

Wins starting with draft/rookie year:

Kyrie:
21, 24, 33... 53 with Lebron

Wall:
26, 23, 20, 29... 44 with Beal, Ariza, Gortat, Nene

KAT:
29, 31, 47 with Butler, 36, 19, 23, 46 with Ant

AD:
27, 35, 45 <-- Jrue, Tyreke Gordon

Blake
29, 32, 50 (adjusted for shortened season) with CP3