Jonas Valanciunas and the Toronto Raptors agreed to a huge contract extension on Thursday
Jonas Valanciunas and the Toronto Raptors have been working on getting a contract extension done all summer. As Valanciunas left international duties to go back to Toronto to talk about the extension with the front office earlier this week, it appeared that the deal was about to be done. On Thursday afternoon, the center indeed signed his extension.
As reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, the Raptors and Valanciunas agreed to a four-year extension that will pay the 23-year-old $64 million over the length of the deal:
There’s no word on what would “escalate” Valanciunas’ deal to that $70 million range, but one has to assume that it’s incentives that probably include something like making All-Star or All-NBA teams. It could be something else, but having those kind of incentives is relatively common practice in the Association.
Playing 26.2 minutes per game last season for the Raptors, Valanciunas showed solid levels of production as he put up 12 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game while shooting 57.2 percent from the floor (stats per ESPN.com). While Valanciunas is still developing as a defender on the interior, he has tremendous value and potential as an offensive-minded big man.
Last season, Valanciunas was incredibly efficient in terms of post-up opportunities, averaging 1.023 points per post-up. That’s the best rate for a player who used more than 200 post-ups last season, per Synergy. It’ll be interesting to see if his post-up rate goes up as he didn’t have an overwhelming number of chances in that regard, but he’s capable of a high level of success when he does get the rock in that situation.
For a big man with the kind of potential that Valanciunas has as a young center and with the cap rising next summer, the price Toronto inked him to is more than fair. If he continues developing into a more well-rounded player and into a player who can handle a larger workload, the extension could wind up looking like a bargain.
With Valanciunas locked up and their core of Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, and the newly acquired DeMarre Carroll, expectations will be high for the Raptors. However, if all of those guys continue to grow as a unit and Valanciunas is able to continue improving, they shouldn’t have a problem meeting those expectations and being a force in the Eastern Conference.
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