Everything that could happen Paul George this summer
4. Extension with the Pacers
Before I start in on this one, let me be clear: Paul George has seriously no incentive to choose this path. It makes no sense from a financial standpoint, from an autonomy standpoint or really from any standpoint. The only upside is a lot of guaranteed money this summer instead of next summer, but there’s no evidence to suggest that George is unusually worried about that.
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This option will almost certainly not happen. However, let’s go over the details just for the sake of being exhaustive. The Pacers would be able to extend George an extra four years this summer, meaning that he would be under contract until the summer of 2022 (that’s not a real year).
If the extension is signed after July 1, then it will be under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). That means that George’s first year salary would be maxed out at 120 percent of the previous year’s salary. George will make $19.5 million next year, so his max salary in his first new contract year would be $23.4 million. Again, he’s not going to do this.
If George is traded this summer, his new team could also extend him with these same stipulations, but don’t expect that to happen either. Paul George is due for a big raise next summer, when he’ll be able to get a max of up to 30 percent of the salary cap. Something crazy would have to go down for him to not cash in on it.