Houston Rockets guard Jalen Green has agreed to a three-year, $106 million contract extension, CBS Sports NBA insider Bill Reiter confirmed Monday. There is a player option on Year 3.
Green, 22, is the third player eligible for a rookie-scale extension to accept a non-max deal this offseason. New Orleans Pelicans forward Trey Murphy III agreed to an extension earlier Monday, and Moses Moody of the Golden State Warriors agreed to one on Sunday. Before these deals, the only players to sign rookie extensions were Scottie Barnes of the Toronto Raptors, Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons, Evan Mobley of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Franz Wagner of the Orlando Magic, all of whom signed max contracts.
The deadline for rookie extensions is Monday at 5 p.m. ET.
At his best, Green looks destined for stardom. Last season, in a 15-game stretch beginning on Feb. 29, he averaged 29.2 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists and shot 42.2% from deep. Green did not command a max contract, though, because his overall numbers aren’t nearly as pretty. In Green’s last nine games of 2023-24, he averaged 16.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists and shot 27% from deep. While there were times when it looked like he had vastly improved — particularly in March — his stats ended up looking strikingly similar to the ones he put up in 2022-23, with a slight uptick in defensive rebounding.
The structure of Green’s deal is unprecedentedand it reflects the gap between his upside and his production. The Rockets have committed to him, but not the same way that the Raptors have committed to Barnes or the Pistons have committed to Cunningham. Green is betting on himself by taking a shorter deal, but not the same way that the Golden State Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga — more on him later — reportedly is. If Green becomes a more efficient scorer and rounds out his game, he could put himself in a position to earn a max contract after the 2026-27 season. If he doesn’t, then Houston will at least have avoided making a long-term investment based on the assumption that he’d improve.
Rockets center Alperen Sengun is also eligible for a rookie extension. Other players in this category include the Magic’s Jalen Suggs, the Atlanta Hawks’ Jalen Johnson, the Chicago Bulls’ Josh Giddey and the Brooklyn Nets’ Cam Thomas, among others.
Murphy gets his money
Murphy has agreed to a four-year, $112 million contract extension with the Pelicans, his agents told The Stein Line’s Marc Stein on Monday. There are no options in the deal, according to ESPN.
Last season, Murphy started slowly while recovering from a knee injury, but averaged 18.1 points (on 66.1% true shooting!), 6.2 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 33.9 minutes in his final 24 games. Murphy made 41.7% of his 3-point attempts during that stretch on 8.8 attempts per game.
If Murphy builds on that, this contract will be a massive home run for the Pelicans. He’s a 6-foot-8 forward with a sky-high release who shoots deep 3s comfortably, and there aren’t a lot of players on the planet who fit that description. Going forward, though, the question is how much — and when — New Orleans can reasonably expect his usage and minutes to increase.
Murphy was the Pelicans’ sixth man when they were healthy last season, and he seems ready to graduate into a more prominent role, but, after a summer in which they traded for Dejounte Murray and did not trade Brandon Ingram, there is not necessarily space for him to spread his wings. Murphy had an 18.2% usage rate last season.
Murphy is expected to miss the beginning of the 2024-25 due to a hamstring strain suffered in training camp.
“Obviously, starting the season again hurts me a lot, Murphy told reporters earlier this month. “And just trying to do everything I can, summer-wise, to be prepared for a season, then having something like that really sucks. But I’m just looking at it in perspective. It could be a lot worse. The good thing it it’s an NBA season — I’ll be there for the majority of it.”
Warriors extend Moody, won’t extend Kuminga
Moody, 22, is sticking with Golden State on an extension worth $39 million over three years, his agent told ESPN. This is a team-friendly deal — it starts at slightly below the midlevel exception — but it is not difficult to understand why it might have been appealing to Moody. For the first three years of his career, he has been productive in his minutes, but has not solidified his spot as an every-night rotation player under coach Steve Kerr. This season, with Golden State as deep as it has ever been, the situation could be similar. In preseason, though, Moody was impressive. He appears to have gotten stronger, and, more importantly, he has comfortably knocked down shots off movement.
“He’s playing great,” Kerr told reporters last weekfollowing a win against the Los Angeles Lakers in which Moody scored 21 points in 19 minutes on 7-for-14 shooting. “He’s gotten so much better in so may ways. We’ve always loved his character, his work ethic, but I think this is the most confidence that I think he’s played with. And he’s going to play a big role for us, but so are a lot of other guys. We’re sitting in that coaches room every day saying, ‘How do we play all these guys?’ ‘Cause they all deserve to play.”
There is still time, in theory, for the Warriors to also get a deal done with Kuminga. According to both ESPN and The Athleticthough, it’s not going to happen. Golden State had offered him a deal worth around $30 million annually, per The Athletic, but it was not willing to go higher than that, so Kuminga has decided to bet on himself becoming a star.
Kuminga, who is also 22 years old, was selected No. 7 overall, seven spots ahead of Moody, in the 2021 draft. He had something of a breakout last season, but has not proven to Golden State’s coaching staff that he can play the 3 spot without floor-spacing bigs in the frontcourt. This makes him a tricky fit alongside Draymond Green, unless Green is playing center. Kerr’s opening-night starting lineup remains a mystery.
