The reigning NBA MVP is staying in OKC for the long term. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has signed a four-year, $285 million supermax extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
The deal keeps Gilgeous-Alexander with the Thunder through the 2030-31 NBA season. With the deal, Gilgeous-Alexander will have the richest annual salary in NBA history.
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The contract will pick up in the 2027-2028 season, after the end of Gilgeous-Alexander’s current deal. Over the next six seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander will make $364 million. Gilgeous-Alexander will make $38 million next season and $40 million in 2026-27 before the extension begins.
From there, Gilgeous-Alexander will see his annual salary jump up to $63 million and steadily increase until it’s $78 million during the 2030-31 NBA season, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
At $71.25 million annually, Gilgeous-Alexander’s deal is the highest annual average in league history. He becomes just the 15th player in league history to sign a supermax deal, a designation that was introduced to the league as part of the 2017 collective bargaining agreement.
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The most recent player to sign a supermax deal was Jayson Tatum, whose extension with the Boston Celtics was the highest-ever annually, until Gilgeous-Alexander unseated him. The total value of Tatum’s contract, a five-year, $304 million deal, remains the largest overall deal in the league.
As a NBA All-Star for the past three consecutive seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander already achieved one criterion for the supermax, and his 2025 MVP award made him eligible for a three-year supermax deal. However, the guard was unable to sign a supermax extension with Oklahoma City until he completed his seventh year in the league.
And what a seventh year it was: Gilgeous-Alexander was the backbone of the Thunder’s championship run, averaging 32.7 points, 5 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 1.7 steals per game throughout the 2024-2025 season. Gilgeous-Alexander was rewarded with both the league MVP and Finals MVP awards, becoming the first player in more than a decade to earn both honors.
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Now that he is considered a veteran player under the current CBA, Gilgeous-Alexander is eligible to earn 35% of the team’s salary cap starting in 2027, when his current rookie extension ends.
Under NBA rules, a player cannot have a contract longer than five years, or have extensions that keep the player with a team for more than six total years. As a result, with two years left on his extension, Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t sign a contract longer than four years.
If Gilgeous-Alexander had chosen to wait until next summer to sign the extension, which was a possibility, he could have signed a longer contract for more guaranteed money; instead, Oklahoma City locks up the face of the franchise sooner rather than later.
