Buddy Hield Complained About Kings' $90 Million Offer and Then Signed Deal Almost Identical to it
By Thomas Carannante
Reports surfaced last week about the Sacramento Kings presenting shooting guard Buddy Hield with a fairly lucrative four-year, $90 million contract. Psh, you call that an offer? This is the NBA! Everyone should be making at least $120 million!
That's pretty much what Hield said when he complained about the offer being "insulting," which drew the ire of many, considering he's not exactly a $100 million player based on his averages of 14.9 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists over four seasons.
It seems Hield heard those messages, because he just reportedly accepted an offer of $86 million...
Source tells @TheAthletic the Kings have agreed to terms on a four-year extension with Buddy Hield worth $86 million in guaranteed money and with $20 million in possible incentives. Big win for both sides to avoid a split here. sides.https://t.co/OzTdN4l1wc
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) October 21, 2019
Yes, there are said to be very "reachable" incentives for that number to reach $94 million, and then a few more difficult ones to hit $106 million, but he really went out of his way to blast the organization over a *possible* $16 million?
On top of that, the Kings structured the deal in their favor, so who really won here?
More details, per source: The incentives in Buddy Hield's Kings extension are team and player based, including things like All-Star appearances and Finals appearances. His salary declines 8% year over year, and is slated to take up just 13.5% of the cap in the fourth year.
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) October 21, 2019
And we'd go out on a limb here to say Hield probably won't make an All-Star team in the Western Conference over the next four years, and it's highly unlikely the Kings make the Finals.
More power to Buddy if he's that ambitious, but this is just an overall puzzling look after his comments from last week.