Thunder, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Agree to Record-Smashing Supermax Contract Extension

SGA won the regular season and NBA Finals MVP awards and was the league's scoring champion in 2024–25.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will now be the highest-paid NBA player in terms of annual value with his new supermax deal with the Thunder.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will now be the highest-paid NBA player in terms of annual value with his new supermax deal with the Thunder. / Oklahoman-Imagn Images
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Very few players have experienced the kind of season that Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had in 2024–25, leading the Thunder to the NBA title and winning the league and NBA Finals MVP awards in the process.

SGA became eligible for a supermax contract extension last season, after making All-NBA teams in two of the previous three seasons. He hit his service time minimum this year, and became eligible for either four- or five-year supermax extensions with Oklahoma City this offseason. ESPN's Shams Charania reports that he has opted for the four-year version, which is worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars and makes SGA the highest-paid player in NBA history by annual salary.

Gilgeous-Alexander's new deal is worth $285 million, or north of $71 million per year.

The extension will kick in for the 2027–28 season, per ESPN's Bobby Marks, and will escalate from over $63.5 million in the first year to over $78.7 million in its final season, 2030–31. SGA will play out the remaining two years on his current deal, which is worth $79.1 million.

The full value of the contract is set to push Gilgeous-Alexander's career earnings over $400 million. He will be a few weeks shy of 33 years old when that contract is set to expire, and could still lock in another massive deal assuming his game ages well, which explains his decision to sign the four-year supermax, and not the five-year version worth an estimated $380 million that he could have inked next year.


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Dan Lyons
DAN LYONS

Dan Lyons is a staff writer and editor on Sports Illustrated's Breaking and Trending News team. He joined SI for his second stint in November 2024 after a stint as a senior college football writer at Athlon Sports, and a previous run with SI spanning multiple years as a writer and editor. Outside of sports, you can find Dan at an indie concert venue or movie theater.