:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61678319/shai.0.jpg)
Former Kentucky Wildcats guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will make a pretty penny with the Los Angeles Clippers—the team who traded for him after he was picked 11th in the 2018 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets—back in July. We now have the details of UK’s next millionaire, thanks to Spotrac.
The contract is two years, $7.3 million, fully guaranteed. As expected, that makes him the 11th-highest paid player in this year’s draft. There’s a team option for years three and four, and if the Clippers were to pick up both options, the contract’s total value would top out at $17 million.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s salary for year one is $3.4 million, and year two will get him a raise to just under $4 million. If the options are picked up, his salary increases to $4.1 million in year three and $5.5 million in year four.
It’s probably a safe be to get that, as he shined in the summer league. Then the annual NBA GM Survey conducted by NBA.com, SGA was voted biggest steal of the 2018 NBA Draft with 27 percent of the votes, more than double the second-leading vote-getter
If all that happens, Gilgeous-Alexander will be contracted through 2022. He’ll then be a restricted free agent, giving the Clippers a chance to match or beat any offer that any team gives him that summer.
In Year 1, the 20-year-old point guard will be the fourth-lowest paid player on the roster, and his contract takes up 2.8 percent of Los Angeles’ cap space for 2018. That’s not surprising, given this is a rookie is salary, but he does come in ahead of Jerome Robinson, Jawun Evans and Sindarius Thornwell.
And Gilgeous-Alexander’s contract value is actually at the top of the scale for where he was drafted. Being the No. 11 pick, his salary comes in at 120 percent of the rookie scale (100 percent for pick 11 is $2.8 million in year one, $3.3 million in year two).
Gilgeous-Alexander makes up about half of Kentucky’s payroll from the 2018 draft, as the Wildcats total up $14.2 million in contract value, which ranks fifth in the nation.