Grizzlies sign Jaren Jackson Jr. to four-year, $105M extension

The Grizzlies and power forward Jaren Jackson Jr. reached an agreement on a rookie scale extension, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Agent Austin Brown of CAA Basketball tells Wojnarowski that Jackson is signing a four-year, $105M extension with the team. It will go into effect in 2022-23.

Jackson, 22, was the fourth overall pick in the 2018 draft and started 113 of the 115 games he played for Memphis in his first two NBA seasons. In 2019-20, he averaged 17.4 PPG, 4.6 RPG and 1.6 BPG on .469/.394/.747 shooting in 57 contests (28.5 MPG).

However, Jackson was sidelined for the majority of the ’20-21 campaign while recovering from surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. He returned late in the season for just 11 games and didn’t quite look like he was back up to full speed, averaging 14.4 PPG on a modest .424/.283/.833 shooting line.

Despite coming off a season nearly entirely lost to injury, Jackson remains a key part of the Grizzlies’ long-term plans, along with guard Ja Morant, who will be up for a rookie scale extension of his own in 2022.

As Wojnarowski writes, Memphis views Jackson as one of the more versatile and dynamic young bigs in the NBA. The team chose to lock him up now rather than risk paying an even higher price in restricted free agency a year from now.

Wojnarowski’s report doesn’t indicate that Jackson’s $105M deal is fully guaranteed, so we’ll have to wait to see if that number is buoyed by incentives or whether the agreement includes some non-guaranteed money or injury language. Still, it’s a nice payday for a player who has only appeared in 126 total regular-season games.

Jackson’s new deal puts this year’s crop of rookie scale extensions over the $1 billion mark, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link). That figure includes massive, maximum-salary extensions for Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Michael Porter Jr., along with contracts ranging from $50M-$90M for Mikal Bridges, Robert Williams and Wendell Carter Jr.