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Indiana Pacers salary series: Ike Anigbogu

By Tony East

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - OCTOBER 31: Ike Anigbogu #13 of the Indiana Pacers and Vince Carter #15 of the Sacramento Kings pose for a portrait before the game on October 31, 2017 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - OCTOBER 31: Ike Anigbogu #13 of the Indiana Pacers and Vince Carter #15 of the Sacramento Kings pose for a portrait before the game on October 31, 2017 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Ike Anigbogu of the Indiana Pacers
DETROIT, MI – NOVEMBER 8: Ike Anigbogu #13 of the Indiana Pacers warms up before the game against the Detroit Pistons on November 8, 2017, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Brian Sevald/NBAE via Getty Images) /

What contract comes next for Ike Anigbogu?

This is largely dependant on how Ike plays in the coming season.

Since it is technically a contract year for Anigbogu, he could produce at a higher rate than he did last season. Minutes were hard to come by in his premier season, he only hit the court for 30 of them. He’s going to need to show some real talent in a larger amount of playing time if he wants to get another contract after this season.

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Minutes will be hard to come by again for the young big man. Between Myles Turner, Domantas Sabonis, and Kyle O’Quinn the center rotation is already very crowded. If Anigbogu wants to get on the court, he will either have to accept a demotion to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants or watch many injuries occur.

And the thing is: even if Angibogu does play extremely well in his minutes (both in the G League and with the Pacers), the team will just bring him back on his cheap contract for next season. This makes his next contract even harder to predict, as it could be two years away.

Let’s add some icing on the cake: even if Anigbogu gets cut after this season or next, the Pacers could still offer him a qualifying offer and make him a restricted free agent, meaning they can match any other offer a different team was to give him. That depresses his value since other teams likely won’t want to offer a small contract to a player they won’t even get.

If he makes it through all three years of his current contract and becomes a restricted free agent, he will be a standard RFA. If he gets waived at the end of this season and gets a qualifying offer, he will be subject to the Arenas provision. This would limit the first-year salary of his next contract to the amount of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, which is roughly $9 million. It is extremely unlikely that a situation arises where Anigbogu is worth $9 million and gets waived, but it is not impossible and it is worth bringing up.

The absence of playing time combined with CBA factors dictate that Anigbogu’s next contract will be pretty small. His qualifying offer would be less than $2 million in the summer of 2019 and 2020, so my guess is that Anigbogu’s next contract is either a minimum one year NBA contract or a contract with a team in Europe.

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