{"id":349669,"date":"2025-10-18T13:22:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/349669\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T13:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:22:52","slug":"nba-signings-milwaukee-bucks-and-aj-green-reach-4-year-45m-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/349669\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Signings: Milwaukee Bucks and AJ Green reach 4-year, $45m extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

After making a few moves earlier today, including waiving third-year forward Chris Livingston<\/a>, the Bucks wrapped up a storyline that lurked in the background for over three months by signing fourth-year guard AJ Green to a fully guaranteed four-year, $45m extension, according to ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania. He became eligible for an extension this past July 6th and would have remained so until the end of next June, but GM Jon Horst mentioned at Media Day that the front office placed a priority on this extension.<\/p>\n

Green is in the final season of a three-year, $6.3m contract signed in July 2023, after he\u2019d completed his rookie season as a two-way player. The 26-year-old sharpshooter will still be on the books for just $2.3m for 2025\u201326. This deal will kick in for 2026\u201327 and keep him under contract through the summer of 2030. Since there are no non-guaranteed years or options, that makes Green the Buck with the longest contract on the team\u2019s ledgers\u2014Myles Turner is the second longest, with a contract through summer 2029. He\u2019s also one of just five current players (including Giannis, Turner, Bobby Portis, and Ryan Rollins) with guaranteed money past summer 2027. Assuming Green gets the maximum 8% year-over-year annual raises allowable on a veteran extension, here\u2019s the approximate breakdown of his salary each season, after he makes his $2.3m this year:<\/p>\n

Two good points of comparison here are similar three-point gunners: former Buck Sam Merrill and Wisconsin native Sam Hauser. Merrill received a four-year, $38m new deal back in July from the Cavs, but he\u2019s nearly three-and-a-half years older than Green. Hauser also received a four-year, $45m contract, which is probably identical to Green\u2019s, and he\u2019ll turn 28 just after Christmas (Green turned 26 about two-and-a-half weeks ago). Since Green\u2019s current salary is way under the league\u2019s estimated average salary of $13.9m, the largest extension he was eligible for was four years and $87m, with a $19.4m starting salary.<\/p>\n

It was a bit interesting that the deal didn\u2019t get done sooner, and because it took three-plus months to hammer it out, there was some offseason trade speculation about Green, including from me (not that I was advocating for it). Even if they had gotten it done earlier, he\u2019d have been trade eligible during the season, but if they didn\u2019t, an acquiring team would still have been able to extend him at any point, despite acquiring him at his lower current salary. Since this deal was completed after August 5th, he\u2019ll be ineligible to be traded this upcoming season. A player who signs a veteran extension covering four years, including any remaining years on his current deal, can\u2019t be traded for six months. The 2026 trade deadline is on February 5th, so we can safely assume he\u2019ll be a Buck through the end of their current campaign.<\/p>\n

Green looks like he\u2019s primed to have a big year, and if the preseason is any indication, he may be in line for a starting gig on opening night next week. The Northern Iowa alum is coming off somewhat of a breakout year, averaging 7.4 PPG and 2.4 RPG on .429\/.427\/.860 shooting to go with above-average (and still developing) defense. That three-point figure, on exactly five attempts per game, ranked 12th best among qualified players leaguewide, 0.3% behind Kevin Durant (his teammate Taurean Prince was third). AJG also appeared in a career-high 73 contests and seven starts, including Game 5 of Milwaukee\u2019s first-round series with Indiana, when he played 46 minutes, also a career high. Per Cleaning The Glass, his +7.3 net rating was second-best on the team outside of Giannis, with most of that coming on defense: while on the floor, the Bucks allowed 6.6 fewer points per 100 possessions compared to when he was off, the team\u2019s best figure.<\/p>\n

Congrats to Green and to the Bucks: after Ryan Rollins\u2019 new contract this offseason, he becomes the second player to receive a multi-year extension after initially signing a two-way contract. Though you might not have realized it due to a lack of success developing recent draft picks (essentially since Donte DiVincenzo), Milwaukee\u2019s player development system is actually pretty solid, especially when it comes to players who began their careers elsewhere in the league. That may be good news for returning two-way player Pete Nance, who\u2019s on his third NBA stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After making a few moves earlier today, including waiving third-year forward Chris Livingston, the Bucks wrapped up a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,40296,102,121,3871,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-349669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-bucks-free-agency","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-milwaukeebucks","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115395389260148157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}