SACRAMENTO -- If you are looking for winners, you have come to the right place. The Sacramento Kings and shooting guard Buddy Hield reached an agreement on a four-year, $86 million contract extension on Monday.
In an NBA rarity, the early takeaway is that the deal is a win-win for everyone involved.
After a breakout season, Hield gets paid handsomely for ascending to elite shooter status. He also has an additional $20 million in motivational incentives over the next four seasons.
Some of those items are obtainable and some aren't. Either way, Hield has plenty of reasons to back up his strong play, as well as focus on team goals.
The structure of the contract also allows Hield and his management team to claim victory. While he was looking for something in the neighborhood of $110 million, Hield can come close to that number if everything goes perfect.
According to a league source, a few of the items built into the contract that are very attainable. There are others that are almost impossible for the 26-year-old to reach. On the low-end, he's still looking at between $86-94 million over the length of the deal.
The contract puts the onus on Hield to not only perform personally, but to achieve team goals like playoffs and even the NBA Finals.
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Sacramento keeps the first of their young core players in the fold. They also structured the deal in the same way they handled Harrison Barnes' extension over the summer. Hield will start with a base salary of $24 million, which will then decline by eight percent in the following three seasons.
Declining value contracts have become an earmark of the Kings' cap conscious build. The players get plenty of upfront money, but eventually, both Hield and Barnes will represent a smaller percentage of the projected cap when money becomes tight and the team has to pay out for young stars like De'Aaron Fox and Marvin Bagley.
Like Barnes' deal, Hield's cap figure will drop below $19 million a year in the final year and represent just 13.5 percent of the team's total projected salary cap.
Instead of allowing Hield's contract to become a potential landmine during the season and bleed into next summer, the team is now moving into opening night with a clean slate and a very happy leading scorer.
