Buddy Hield is eligible for a rookie-scale extension and, make no mistake, the Sacramento Kings should extend him ASAP.
Buddy Hield is one of nearly two dozen players eligible for rookie-scale extensions this summer, but he’s only one of a handful whose teams should give him an extension, and the Sacramento Kings would be wise to do so — an quickly.
Last season, only five players signed rookie-scale extensions, and those deals ranged from $39 million (Justise Winslow) to $190 million (Karl-Anthony Towns). Hield isn’t eligible for a monster, KAT-type deal thanks to the “Rose Rule”, which precludes any eligible player from making a deal worth 30% of their team’s salary cap unless they made an All-NBA team or won an MVP or DPOY award.
This means, Buddy Hield’s max extension would be worth five years, $158.1 million or a four-year max worth $117.2 million — but the Sacramento Kings don’t have to offer that much.
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Of course, they can’t low-ball him either. His extension will cover his age-27 through age-31/32 season, so essentially Hield’s entire prime. But Buddy has yet to have the breakout year that would necessitate Sacramento offering him a four or five-year max, but a four-year deal worth about $100-110 million could be beneficial to both sides, and allow Buddy to sign another large deal at the tail-end of his prime.
If Hield were to sign for about $110 million, that would allow the Kings to operate as an over-the-cap team next offseason, which would give them access to bi-annual exception and the standard mid-level exception, which is worth about $10 million and $4 million, respectively.
Even more importantly though, it takes away any risk of losing him next offseason.
While Hield will be a restricted free agent next season, we’ve seen time and time again that other teams can sign a player that the team with the players rights either can’t match (Malcolm Brogdon), or can match and destroy their cap-sheet (Tyler Johnson).
Regardless, the Sacramento Kings and Buddy Hield need to act fast, as the deadline is Oct. 15. But, there hasn’t been much talk about an extension, though Buddy has posted some tweets that have caught the eyes of Kings fans.
Either way, we’ll know whether the team will extend him within the next few months, but one thing is for sure — the Sacramento Kings should do what they can to get it done.