Contract Impacts of 2020-21 All-NBA Teams

Keith Smith
Keith Smith, Resident NBA ExpertJune 15, 2021
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The presence, and absence, of a handful of players with the recently announced 2020-21 All-NBA teams has major financial ramifications for upcoming and future contract extensions.

The 2020-21 All-NBA Teams:

First Team

  • Nikola Jokic
  • Giannis Antetokounmpo
  • Kawhi Leonard
  • Stephen Curry
  • Luka Doncic

Second Team

  • Joel Embiid
  • Julius Randle
  • LeBron James
  • Damian Lillard
  • Chris Paul

Third Team

  • Rudy Gobert
  • Jimmy Butler
  • Paul George
  • Bradley Beal
  • Kyrie Irving

 

Luka Doncic, G, DAL

Let’s start with Luka Doncic. By virtue of being named to an All-NBA team for the second consecutive year, Doncic now qualifies for the Designated Player Rookie Extension. We previously covered all of the options for Doncic last week. Here’s the projected extension starting at 30% of the 2022-23 cap that Doncic is now in line to sign:

  • 2022-23 - $34,735,800
  • 2023-24 - $37,514,664
  • 2024-25 - $40,293,528
  • 2025-26 - $43,072,392
  • 2026-27 - $45,851,256
  • Total – 5 years, $201,467,640

(Note: Doncic will complete the fourth and final year of his Rookie Scale contract during the 2021-22 season. This extension would start with the following season in 2022-23.) Because of Doncic’s stature in the league, it’s likely he’ll have a player option on the fifth year of his new deal. And he’ll probably have a 15% trade bonus added in there too.

Because Doncic made All-NBA in both 2019-20 and 2020-21, he is no longer dependent on being honored for 2021-22. A player must make All-NBA or win Defensive Player of the Year in either the two seasons that preceded the most recent season or in the most recent season (or win MVP in any of the three preceding seasons) to qualify for a Designated Player Extension. Since Doncic made it in 2019-20 and 2020-21, he’s now qualified for the Designated Player Rookie Extension no matter how his 2021-22 season goes.

 

Bam, Fox, Mitchell, & Tatum

Sticking with Designated Player Rookie Extensions, a quartet of players did not make All-NBA and thus did not qualify for the jump from 25% to 30% of the cap (or anywhere in-between). Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, Donovan Mitchell and Jayson Tatum all were eligible to bump to 30% of the cap in first-year salary in their extensions had they made All-NBA. Fox wasn’t a realistic candidate to make All-NBA, but Adebayo had a case and Tatum and Mitchell were both certainly deserving. In the case of Tatum, he narrowly missed out on his second straight All-NBA nod.

As it stands now, each player will have a projected extension structure of:

  • 2021-22 - $28,103,500
  • 2022-23 - $30,351,780
  • 2023-24 - $32,600,060
  • 2024-25 - $34,848,340
  • 2025-26 - $37,096,620
  • Total – 5 years, $163,000,300

Both Tatum and Mitchell have player options on their fifth years, while Adebayo and Fox are straight five-year contracts.

Had any of the quartet been named to All-NBA, they would have been eligible for a projected first-year salary of $33,724,200 and a total salary of $195,600,360 over the life of their deals. That’s a difference of $5,620,700 in 2021-22 and $32,600,060 over the full run.

 

Joel Embiid, C, PHI

As for the Designated Player Veteran Extension, Joel Embiid has now qualified to sign under this criterion. Embiid’s current deal is scheduled to run through 2022-23. This offseason, the 76ers could tack on four additional years to Embiid’s contract via the Designated Player Veteran Extension beginning in 2023-24 at 35% of the cap. That would give Embiid a projected contract structure of:

  • 2021-22 - $31,579,390 (current contract)
  • 2022-23 - $33,616,770 (current contract)
  • 2023-24 - $42,551,250 (Year 1 of Designated Player Veteran Extension)
  • 2024-25 - $45,955,350
  • 2025-26 - $49,359,450
  • 2026-27 - $52,763,550
  • Total – 6 years, $255,825,760

That’s a lot of money to lay out, given Embiid’s injury history and the fact that he’ll turn 33 years old during the 2026-27 season, but Embiid is the NBA’s best two-way center and has gotten more serious about his conditioning this year. It’s probably worth the gamble to keep one of the league’s most talented big men happy and in the fold in Philadelphia.


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