The Pacers put the Suns on the clock, and Phoenix didn’t take long to respond.
Earlier on Thursday, restricted free agent Deandre Ayton had agreed to sign a record-setting offer sheet with Indiana, his agents, Bill Duffy and Nima Namakian, told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Thursday.
From that moment, Phoenix had three options: Match the offer sheet, figure out a sign-and-trade deal or let Ayton walk.
Well, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Suns quickly matched the Pacers’ offer sheet for Ayton, keeping him in Phoenix.
The Phoenix Suns have matched the Indiana Pacers’ four-year, $133 million maximum offer sheet on Deandre Ayton, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Ayton stays in Phoenix.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 15, 2022
What are the terms of the contract? Here’s what we know about the deal that sees Ayton remain a Sun.
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Deandre Ayton contract details
Ayton and the Pacers reached an agreement on a four-year, $133 million maximum offer sheet. That is the largest offer sheet in NBA history, surpassing the four-year, $106.5 million deal that Otto Porter signed in 2017.
The Pacers cleared the cap space to reach Ayton’s annual salary by waiving a handful of players, but it appears to be all for nothing, as the Suns elected to match the offer.
What Deandre Ayton’s offer sheet means for Suns
Phoenix previously made it clear that the franchise doesn’t feel Ayton belongs in the same tier as Luka Doncic, Trae Young and other max extension candidates from the 2018 NBA Draft class, so the initial assumption was that the Suns would discuss the framework of a sign-and-trade deal with the Pacers.
However, Phoenix matched the offer very quickly as they hadn’t “shown any interest in negotiating a sign-and-trade,” per Wojnarowski. Now that the Suns have matched, Ayton is ineligible to be traded until January 15, and even then, he would have to agree to a move as he holds veto power on any trade for a year.
It’s an unusual path back to Phoenix for Ayton, but the Suns simply couldn’t afford to lose Ayton for nothing. Perhaps their plan is to keep Ayton and pursue another trade during the 2022-23 season. They could also keep Ayton, have a conversation about the future and realize the best-case scenario is the 23-year-old staying in Phoenix.
