Brad Stevens has been the king of extensions since taking over as president of the Celtics. He has been able to lock down all of the homegrown talent, mostly on discount deals, basically at the best possible time for the team. He already nailed three this offseason with Ron Harper Jr., Neemias Queta, and Jordan Walsh, and many assumed that Payton Pritchard would be next up.
Pritchard still has two years left on his deal, which was one of Brad’s first masterful, bargain-basement extensions that has aged like wine, but he’s eligible to tack on three more years at 140% of his current salary starting in October.
He signed a four-year, $30 million rookie-scale extension back in 2023, so the most Boston can pay him this fall is three years and roughly $67 million, which would start in the 2028-29 season. The general assumption has been that this deal would be Brad’s next order of business, and perhaps his last one before the season started.
Pritchard not thinking about a contract extension
But we may want to pump the brakes on that assumption, as Payton sat down with NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg on Monday and, when asked about a possible extension, he told Forsberg:
“I don’t really think about it… It’s not something I’m really looking at. I have two years on my contract. There’s no rush on it. We’ll talk obviously, but we have a whole next year to talk about an extension. For me, it’s focusing on getting better and becoming the best basketball player I can possibly be.”
Perhaps Pritchard is just being coy, but this doesn’t exactly sound like he’s in a rush to get a new deal done. And in a way, it’s hard to blame him. His previous deal ended up being a pretty big discount, and considering he’s already 28 and still has two more years making under $10 million, it makes sense for him to wait and try to get a bigger payday.
That’s especially the case if he wants to bet on himself, and why wouldn’t he? He’s about to take on a bigger role and become a more central part of the offense. With a nice little bump in usage and production, the market for his services could go up quite a bit over the next year or two.
And for a guy who may only have one big NBA contract left in him, it’s fair to think he’ll want to secure the biggest payday possible before he’s out of the league, or on the downswing.
Pritchard may want to lock in his max deal as soon as possible
On the other hand, we’re talking about a deal that would be worth over $60 million and bring his career earnings close to $100 million. Even if you think he could possibly make more, we’re talking about locking in generational wealth. We all assume Payton will keep improving, but by the time his current contract ends, he’ll be 30 years old, and the market for a 6’1” guard at his age may not be any better than what the Celtics can offer now.
There’s a solid case to be made for both sides here. The Celtics may also want to play a little hardball and see if they can get him to extend below his 140% max. Or maybe both sides want to play it out and see how it goes for a year before revisiting things next summer.
There is a lot in play, and there are several ways this could go. I definitely think a deal in October is very much still in play, but it doesn’t sound like the sure thing I thought it was before today.
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