two-year, $44.2 million contract<\/a> that includes a mutual option for the 2029-30 season.<\/p>\nAccording to him, it wasn\u2019t an especially difficult decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like $22 million a year is quite a lot of money, especially going from making about 8,\u201d Pritchard said Sunday in his first public comments since the team announced his extension. \u201cSo I thought it was \u2014 I don\u2019t know, sometimes I like to just take that, and then you can always work for the next one. Stay hungry, and maybe go get after the next one, be a better player. Three years down the road, maybe I\u2019m a better player, and then hopefully I can get rewarded like that again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pritchard\u2019s value to the Celtics far outpaced his previous contract \u2014 a four-year, $30 million pact widely viewed as one of the NBA\u2019s biggest bargains. When he signed that deal in October 2023, he was coming off a season in which he appeared in just 48 games and became so frustrated with his lack of playing time that he requested a trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, I wasn\u2019t playing,\u201d Pritchard recalled. \u201cI\u2019ve talked about this before, but it was probably a little delusional confidence that I have. But it\u2019s from my work, the hours I put in. But I believed I could help this team win and at a high level. Now, many people didn\u2019t believe it at the time or thought I was crazy, but I truly believed that. Obviously, things opened up for me and it worked out and I took advantage of it, and hopefully I continue to take advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sticking around proved fruitful for both Pritchard and the team.<\/p>\n
The following season, the undersized guard reemerged as a core rotation player, saw action in all 82 games and hit some of the biggest shots in Boston\u2019s 2024 playoff run, including his iconic halfcourt buzzer-beater in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. A year later, he was the NBA\u2019s Sixth Man of the Year. Last season, he was the Celtics\u2019 second-leading scorer behind Jaylen Brown despite shifting from the starting lineup back to the bench in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just built like a competitive person,\u201d head coach Joe Mazzulla said. \u201cI think that\u2019s just kind of who he is in general. But I think it\u2019s a really good template (for) how difficult it is. You take a look at his career. He played, and then he didn\u2019t play, and then we brought in other guys in his position, but he still played. He just maintained a level of toughness, a level of resilience, but I think a level of open-mindedness to (say), \u2018I\u2019m just going to do whatever needs to be done to get on the floor and impact winning.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s looked different at every stage of his career, and I think that\u2019s a (lesson to) younger players and new players coming in. They\u2019re so used to having it done a certain type of way, or \u2018This is my game,\u2019 whereas he was just like, \u2018I don\u2019t really have a game. I\u2019m just going to do what I need to do.\u2019 I think that competitiveness, but also that open-mindedness is kind of what makes him who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement Saturday, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens called Pritchard \u201ca very good player\u201d and \u201cjust a flat-out winner\u201d with an \u201celite\u201d work ethic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled he\u2019s chosen to extend with the C\u2019s,\u201d Stevens said.<\/p>\n
The feeling was mutual.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot from, obviously, Brad and the organization, (team owner) Bill (Chisholm) and all them, to offer that,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cSo I\u2019m definitely grateful for it and just happy to have signed another two years on it to be in Boston, and I love it here. I like competing for the city and competing for the organization, and so I feel very honored.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When he became extension-eligible on Oct. 1, Payton Pritchard had a decision to make. Should he opt for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,20000,26084,2675,6,405,101004,101005],"class_list":["post-862120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-celtics-preseason","tag-celtics-roster","tag-joe-mazzulla","tag-nba","tag-payton-pritchard","tag-payton-pritchard-contract","tag-payton-pritchard-extension"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117463021211914214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862120","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=862120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}