Zion Williamson, who missed the NBA last season with a broken right leg, has agreed to a five-year extension to the contract he signed with the New Orleans Pelicans in 2019 as a rookie, according to ESPN. Sports Saturday.
The deal is valued at $193 million, but it could rise to $231 million depending on the results the player achieves on the team, including selection to the league’s best team next season, the league’s best player. or the best defender.
The player, who in 2019 was selected first in a “draft” designed to assign group players to American high schools and foreigners to the league, suffered from a curse of injury, but he had some brilliant moments early in his career in the NBA, where he scored averaged 25.7 points with 7 rebounds and 3 2 assists in 85 games since the 2019-20 season.
Williamson suffered a knee injury during his first season in the league, delaying his NBA start until January 2020.
Williamson celebrates his twenty-second birthday on Wednesday, the first day of the opening of contracts for the 2022-2023 season.
Everything that was issued some time ago, before the official signing of contracts, since Wednesday, was not official, but issued by players’ agents or from knowledgeable media, with clubs unable to confirm the deals, including the Brooklyn Nets, who received a request from their star Kevin Durant from bringing him into the exchange process according to local media.
ESPN, citing unnamed sources, indicated that Duran, who won the league twice with the Golden State Warriors and the 2014 NHL Player of the Year in the colors of the Oklahoma City Thunder, wants to move to the Phoenix Suns or the Miami Heat.
She added that the Nets are keen to get the best possible deal from the star, who has extended his contract in 2021 by four years for $198 million.
On Saturday, Duran decided to perform for the first time since he announced his desire to leave, but what he tweeted was ambiguous: “People in the gym with me know what it’s like, they know me.”
“If you are not near me, ask those around you,” he added.
Durant, 33, along with Kyrie Irving and James Harden, who moved to the Philadelphia 76ers earlier this year, failed to lead the Nets to a championship race in 2021.
The Nets had some difficulty between Irving’s refusal of the Covid-19 vaccine that kept him out of play for most of the season, the resentment that arose after Harden’s departure, and finally the humiliating exit. from the first round of the Playoffs Boston Celtics 0-4.
Durant’s decision came as a surprise, especially since Irving chose to stay with the Nets after the extra-season renewal clause was activated, even though he could have left as well.
Source: El Iktisad