Report: Pacers offered Victor Oladipo contract extension with $25M starting salary

Victor Oladipo – after contrary indicators – stated his commitment to the Pacers for this season.

Before trading him to the Rockets for Caris LeVert, Indiana apparently tested Oladipo’s commitment beyond this year.

Ryan McDonough of Radio.com:

Here’s what my sources tell me about Oladipo, that the Pacers offered Oladipo an extension over the last three to six months. The extension would’ve started in the mid-20-million-dollar range, in the 25-million-dollar range and gone up eight percent a year. That’s the most the Pacers can do under the rules. Oladipo turned down that extension.

The largest extension Indiana could have offered Oladipo had a starting salary of $25.2 million and a total value of $112,896,000 over four years.

Oladipo can get more in free agency – a max of at least $145,014,318 over four years even if he changes teams, more if he re-signs and/or NBA-wide revenue is higher than projected. But with his health history, a $28 million salary looks more than fair.

That said, how much of the Pacers’ offer was guaranteed? This wasn’t necessarily as lucrative of an offer as it appears. If significantly unguaranteed, the extension might have been easy to reject.

If the Pacers offered Oladipo $112,896,000 fully guaranteed and he rejected it, they rightly deemed him a flight risk. That would’ve been a strong signal about his desire to leave Indiana.

Maybe Oladipo will demand less to re-sign with Houston. His bargaining position could also change by the offseason, depending how he plays the roster of the year.

But we now have some notion of Oladipo’s asking price.