Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has secured a historic payday.
The Thunder superstar agreed to a four-year, $285 million supermax contract, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Tuesday.
The contract has an average salary of $71.25 million each year, marking the richest-ever annual value for an NBA player.
The 26-year-old is coming off one of the NBA’s best individual seasons in recent memory, winning both MVP and Finals MVP as Oklahoma City captured its first-ever NBA title.
Gilgeous-Alexander became just the 11th player to win both awards in the same season, and the first since LeBron James in 2013.
He also is the first player to win the NBA scoring title and championship in the same season since Shaquille O’Neal did so in 2000.
Besides Gilgeous-Alexander and O’Neal, only Michael Jordan (six times), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Mikan (twice) and Joe Fulks have accomplished that feat.
Gilgeous-Alexander led the league in scoring in 2024-25 with 32.7 points a night, and averaged 30.3 points per game in the NBA Finals.
Since getting traded from the Clippers to the Thunder in 2019, Gilgeous-Alexander has blossomed into one of the league’s premier players.
He stuck with Oklahoma City through its rebuild in the early 2020s, and reaped the benefits as the team added the pieces around him to contend and emerged as a contender in recent years.
Before signing his enormous extension, Gilgeous-Alexander signed a five-year, $179 million deal with the Thunder that was set to expire after 2026-27.
Now, he’s under contract in Oklahoma City through the 2030-31 season.
Even after shelling out the historic sum to Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder are still in a position to improve their roster in the coming years.
After putting an emphasis on draft capital during the team’s rebuild, general manager Sam Presti managed to stock the Thunder with future assets.
Oklahoma City will have five first-round picks in the next two drafts, plus the rights to a first-round swap with the Clippers in 2027.
