Moses Brown‘s new contract with the Thunder is a four-year deal worth $6.8M, according to Royce Young of ESPN, who reports (via Twitter) that the second and third years are non-guaranteed. There’s a fourth-year team option for 2023-24, Young adds.
If Brown keeps playing like he has in his last four games (14.3 PPG, 16.8 RPG), that deal could wind up being a major bargain for the Thunder. However, one aspect of it is relatively player-friendly — as Bobby Marks of ESPN observes (via Twitter), Brown’s rest-of-season salary of $1.25M is about $750K more than he would have earned if he received the prorated minimum.
Because Oklahoma City remains about $4M below the minimum salary floor, per Marks, there was no reason for the team not to go above the 2020-21 minimum for Brown. The Thunder’s cap situation also provides little incentive to try to save money by buying out any of their current veterans, so it makes sense that Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman is reporting that a buyout with Mike Muscala is “unlikely to happen.”
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