[Shams] OKC Jalen Williams agrees to 5 year max extension

[Patches Perry]

Excuse me?

Unless you meant top 10 player on the Thunder, then, yes, I agree. Could be a typo as well, because he is definitely a top 100 player.

Maybe top 15 depending how you rate post prime guys like KD.

Jalen Williams just made All-NBA and All-NBA defense in the same season while being the 2nd best player on a championship team. He is one of the best defenders in the league while being a really good scorer and playmaker. Top 100 is wildly underrating him.

Yes, that was a sarcastic remark to emphasise my surprise at your statement. Jalen Williams, top 10? I am quite certain even Jalen Williams wouldn't agree with that assessment. Could you name me the players that you think are better than Jalen Williams?

Rough order:
Active, prime and healthy- Jokic, SGA, Giannis, Luka, Wemby, Edwards, Brunson, Mitchell

Injured- Tatum, Haliburton

Old but still top 10 reputation- LeBron, KD, Curry, Kawhi

Thats 14 there I'd concede or hear arguments for but age and injuries factored in, I'm taking Jalen Williams in my top 15.

Who am I missing?

[Dadouv47]

OKC can lose the next years because of injuries, lack of development from some players, better teams emerging and so on but money won't be the issue in the near future. It might be in 3+ seasons so hopefully Presti can make a decent job at surround our guys with enough talent.

[Rendei]

Chet rhey said 250... he doesn't have the full escalators? Paolo was 287 as well

Williams and Paolo have the higher max because they've made the All NBA team.

[hugepatsfan]

Will be interesting to see what their approach is next offseason. They're $24M over the 2nd apron before picks but have a crapload of team options so easy to stay under if that's what they want to do. They've set it up well to avoid the tax this year and stave off those repeater penalties one extra year.

[PushDaRock]

Chet rhey said 250... he doesn't have the full escalators? Paolo was 287 as well

Williams and Paolo have the higher max because they've made the All NBA team.

The Supermax only kicks in if either of them makes All-NBA or wins DPOY next season.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

Congrats to him. He showed up and helped OKC win a championship. I don’t think anyone else from the 2022 draft will get a max.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

Chet rhey said 250... he doesn't have the full escalators? Paolo was 287 as well

Williams and Paolo have the higher max because they've made the All NBA team.

Only Jalen made the all-nba team. But both are required to make it this season to get the max money.

[Castle Black]

Aside from having their core guys locked up over the long term now, the other good news for OKC is that they have a ton of future Draft capital to use to continue to surround these guys with role players once they inevitably start to lose some of theirs. They have up to 6 picks in the next 2 drafts alone.

[Anticon]

Predictable and deserved. He is a top 10 player at this point.

Excuse me?

Unless you meant top 10 player on the Thunder, then, yes, I agree. Could be a typo as well, because he is definitely a top 100 player.

Parity has caused all kinds of interesting player rankings.

That said he is a top rotation player on a potentially multi year title team. So how do you value that?

[littlerock2277]

Other teams should be watching OKC roster closely in the future. Might definitely be able to snatch some of their role players in future Wallace, wiggins are still young could also get a lot of money from a team in the near future.

We could lose Cason Wallace if a team is willing to give him an incredible contract that we aren't able to offer him. I think Wiggins is safe because is contract is so cheap that it doesn't make any sense to trade him.

Did not realize wiggins has already had been extended. That contract is very good. Presti really playing chess with the rest of the league.

[Pattycakes]

This feels like 2-3x too much for dude. Mid

[TheGeneral99]

Can somebody explain the math and how they afford this?

[Dadouv47]

Other teams should be watching OKC roster closely in the future. Might definitely be able to snatch some of their role players in future Wallace, wiggins are still young could also get a lot of money from a team in the near future.

We could lose Cason Wallace if a team is willing to give him an incredible contract that we aren't able to offer him. I think Wiggins is safe because is contract is so cheap that it doesn't make any sense to trade him.

Did not realize wiggins has already had been extended. That contract is very good. Presti really playing chess with the rest of the league.

I think he knew what he had in Chet/JDub and Presti had good negotiating leverage with Wiggins because he had a team option of 2 millions$ for last season but he decided to decline it to sign him for a better price (he did the same with Isaiah Joe but Joe contract doesn't look as good).

[phanman]

This was a foregone conclusion with his breakout regular season + strong playoff showing. I thought they could have gotten some back on Chet's extension given his injury history but I think Presti probably wanted to avoid having a Harden 2.0 situation. Pay now and worry about staying under in future years.

It'll be interesting in 26/27 is going to be hella expensive with their vet role players still making a decent chunk: 108.9m
IHart: 28.5m
Caruso:19.5m
Dort: 18.2m
Joe: 11.3m
Wiggins. 9.2m
Jwill: 7.7m
Cason: 7.4m
Kenrich: 7.1m

[Dadouv47]

Can somebody explain the math and how they afford this?

Shai is still under rookie max for two more seasons. That's the first step to understand the math behind it.

Hartenstein and Dort have a team option for the 2026/2027 season. I have no clue what will happen will them.

Cason Wallace is still under rookie contract. He's up to sign an extension next offseason that would start in 2026/2027.

Short term we can keep everybody. No major concerns for the 2026/2027 season either but after that it's gonna be a huge problem and we are likely losing two of Hartenstein/Dort/Caruso/Cason Wallace.

[WestbrookGOATed]

OKC has their big three locked up. But this almost certainly means Dort/Wallace/Hartenstein will be hard to retain

Hartenstein wont be retained. We've known this since he signed his short deal basically lol.

[The-Power]

Rough order:
Active, prime and healthy- Jokic, SGA, Giannis, Luka, Wemby, Edwards, Brunson, Mitchell

Injured- Tatum, Haliburton

Old but still top 10 reputation- LeBron, KD, Curry, Kawhi

Thats 14 there I'd concede or hear arguments for but age and injuries factored in, I'm taking Jalen Williams in my top 15.

Who am I missing?

A bunch of players definitely have a case (though some cases are weaker than others).

Non-exhaustive list looking up and the down the WC and EC standings: Chet, Sengün, Harden, (Zubac), Gobert, Butler, JJJ, (Morant), (Sabonis), Davis, Booker, (Zion), Mobley, (White), (Towns), Siakam, Cade, (Banchero), (Wagner), (Trae), (Bam), Embiid

In brackets the ones for whom I personally would not make the case but where I can see others making reasonable arguments depending on one's criteria as well as team context. The ones not in brackets have a solid argument, IMO, and it could be argued either way (though none of them are clearly ahead of J-Dub either).

From the ones you listed, I'd be open to listening to arguments for J-Dub over Edwards, Brunson and Mitchell (I'd probably side with all of them in the end, though not for all team contexts). Tatum and Haliburton are injured but unless there is good reason to believe they won't come back as strong (which is the main reason to leave Embiid out, of course), I'd still count them here and put them ahead. Curry is still clearly ahead IMO. I'd still back LeBron, too, while Durant and Kawhi are tough ones (I'd probably take them for a series when healthy but not necessarily over the course of a season and not for all teams either).

[Dadouv47]

This was a foregone conclusion with his breakout regular season + strong playoff showing. I thought they could have gotten some back on Chet's extension given his injury history but I think Presti probably wanted to avoid having a Harden 2.0 situation. Pay now and worry about staying under in future years.

It'll be interesting in 26/27 is going to be hella expensive with their vet role players still making a decent chunk: 108.9m
IHart: 28.5m
Caruso:19.5m
Dort: 18.2m
Joe: 11.3m
Wiggins. 9.2m
Jwill: 7.7m
Cason: 7.4m
Kenrich: 7.1m

I think getting rid of either Isaiah Joe or Kenrich is enough for the 2026/2027 season. Money problems gonna start in 2027/2028.

[Deivork]

Rough math, based on projected cap/luxury tax: above the 1st apron in 2026-2027, above the tax in 2027-2028 but that's assuming Dort and Wallace are not extended which will probably push them to the 2nd apron.

At the very least, they probably have a 2 year window before they start making decisions.

this cba just sucks and i don't even like the thunder

[Airmiess]

Jesus Christ... he getting paid more than MJ made on the Bulls?