BREAKING 🚨 Thunder sign SGA to richest annual salary in NBA history 💰| First Take

BREAKING 🚨 Thunder sign SGA to richest annual salary in NBA history 💰| First Take

a 4-year $285 million super max contract extension with the championship Oklahoma City Thunder through 2030 2031 sources tell ESPN this is now the richest annual salary for a player in league history that’s our breaking news right now here on First Taken so Wendy reaction to this news about Shay Gildas Alexander yeah the bad news for the rest of the NBA is that the Thunder have a tremendous young team and are in position to lock them all down um this summer they can basically lock up their entire core in the next few weeks and this was a big move here and you know the key is going to be to study the terms of this deal um to see h how this all works out um but this was a no-brainer the man is the MVP he’s the finals MVP he’s the scoring champion he’s in He’s just really entering his prime and look a lot of people have always said stars don’t want to be in Oklahoma City shay Gildis Alexander wants to be in Oklahoma City he has said that from the before he was an Ascendant star from when he got there via trade he has loved it there he has put down roots there his family is there if you know you were like Tim and I and even and and even David were there in the finals if you spent any time around Shay if you spent time around his family if you spent time around the Thunder you understood that this guy has roots there and now he’s backing that up with his actions this is a full extension he’s now committed for six years okay this is him saying “I want to do something special here.” The Thunder have positioned themselves to pay him they position themselves to support around him whether it’s the players they have on the roster now or it’s the flexibility they have with all of their draft picks they can present to him that this is the team that he is going to want to spend his prime with which is what this commitment is and I think the big thing is they now have Jaylen Williams and they now have Chad Homegrren that they can also do contracts with in the in the coming days over the over this during the season they extended Alex Caruso who’s a vitally important role player for them because they positioned themselves and built this team organically they’re able to do this they are going to face second apron realities and and difficulties a couple of years from now but the Thunder aren’t going anywhere and this is a big moment that they should celebrate getting this onto paper all right your reaction to the Supermax contract
the Oklahoma City Thunder are the NBA champions and they are set up to be the dominant force in the NBA for the rest of the decade we just talked about how good the Houston Rockets are and how well positioned they are but the Thunder are better positioned they’re better positioned than any team in the league and that’s because they have the MVP of the league of the league who is now locked up for six seasons as Brian just perfectly laid out jaylen Williams and Chad Homegrren will soon sign long-term extensions to be the centerpieces of this team alongside Chave Gillis Alexander and yes the Thunder are going to have to deal with the Second Apron like everybody else the Thunder also have a mountain of draft picks to continue to add young players to this team they have players signed to cheap long-term descending contracts that will help them avoid the second apron going forward and this is the same plan in a lot of ways that Sam Pressie the general manager of the Thunder enacted 10 years ago with the last big three had of Russell Westbrook Kevin Durant and Sergey Baka i was in Sam Pressy’s office a decade ago when he was laying out what the future payrolls of the Thunder were going to be and what they were going to do to support that team as those guys aged into the next stage of their careers now it turned out Kevin Durant left Sergbaka left James Harden was traded away but when they had Paul George and Carmemelllo Anthony they paid a mountain in luxury tax payments because they had spent years preparing to pay for that kind of a team they’ve done the same thing the last few years they’ve had one of the cheapest teams in the league from a payroll standpoint they’ve been putting money aside to pay for this team they are not going to be in a situation where in a couple years ago oh man the Thunder expensive they got to trade Jaylen Williams so they have to trade Chad Homegrren they’re in a situation where they are preparing to be a dominant force in the NBA for the next several years probably through the end of the decade and maybe further you now have Shel Alexander under contract till 2031 right this is a team that you look going forward there’s arguably not been a team better positioned to deal with a a five or sixyear run in the history of the league than this Thunder team and it’s coming at a time when so many other teams are not prepared to deal with the new realities that are in place so if you want to say that the last chance of a Thunder dynasty was impacted by the way the rules changed and caused them to have to lose some players off their team right now they are perfectly positioned to handle the new situation the league is in and I think they’ve got a chance to be in incredible shape for years to come thunder are last of a dying breed they We are in the post dynasty era we’re supposed to be in the post dynasty era we’re supposed to be in the parody era where there are seven different champions the Thunder are the dynastic team they are the team that is going to be in the finals in the conversation for the finals in the conference championship for the foreseeable future and this is part of what they’ve done to lock this thing up sga as as Wendy said when you go there to the finals and you see them at OKC you see SGA got his crew out there lil Yachty was out there after one of those games you bring Lil Yachty to OKC because you’re saying “This is my home and I’m bringing people here to this city i am embracing this city and he has everybody else built into embracing that you just got to sign those checks.” And Prey is ready to continue to sign those checks for the next few years this team even if you say Houston can win this game this year maybe the next OKC is going to bounce right back they will be in that conversation for years and years to come while everybody else is scrambling with that second apron trying to figure out how to finish their roster fill out their rosters trying to figure out how to get stars OKC already has that they’ll be making moves in the margins and they have a guy in Sam Prey who is ready to do that but be prepared for OKC to be the next mega power that we’re going to see for the rest of this decade before the finals were over when we saw the Pacers going up against the Thunder it felt like there was more pressure on the Thunder for a lot of different reasons but mainly because they felt like they were trying to build a dynasty there in OKC well now they win the first championship they get that under their belt and now they’re starting to sign their s their stars to these max contracts and now it truly feels like not so much pressure but that they are trying to build this dynasty wendy final word here on this whole situation and our breaking news about Shay Gil just Alexander
the best situation you could ever be in as a team is to qu is to be questioned about whether you can be a dynasty
because that means you’ve got a championship team and you’ve got a team built in such a way that you think people people think you can win more
so the Thunder are going to have problems in the future because that’s the nature of basketball but their problems are all wonderful problems to have [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

On First Take, Brian Windhorst, David Dennis Jr. and Tim Bontemps join Shae Cornette to react to the breaking news from Shams Charania that the Oklahoma City Thunder have agreed to a 4-year, $285M super maximum contract extension with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

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