The Philadelphia 76ers have agreed to a five-year, $170 million extension with point guard Ben Simmons, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports. Simmons’ rookie-scale contract ends after the 2019-20 season.
Simmons’ new deal will keep him under contract in Philly through the end of the 2024-25 campaign. Simmons’ contract will be based on the max contract values for the first year of the extension. Because Simmons will have less than six years of service time, he’ll be eligible for a 25% max deal.
That 25% max will be tethered to the not-yet-official salary cap value for 2020-21. The current projection for next year’s salary cap is $117 million. Below are the projected values for each season.
| Year | Salary |
| 2019-20 | $8.1M |
| 2020-21 | $29.3M |
| 2021-22 | $31.6M |
| 2022-23 | $34.1M |
| 2023-24 | $36.8M |
| 2024-25 | $39.8M |
Simmons wasted no time living up to the hype after a lost rookie campaign due to injury. In his two active seasons with Philadelphia, he’s 16.4 points, 8.5 rebounds and 7.9 assists per game.
When Simmons formally signs the extension he’ll be the first major free agent to bow out of 2020 free agency. He was the No. 2-ranked free agent in SLAM Newswire’s Top 25 NBA free agents for 2020.
