Croatia national team player Ivica Zubac has agreed to extend his contract with the Los Angeles Clippers for another three years, for which he will receive $33 million, reports ESPN and basketball agents Jeff Schwartz and Mike Lindeman from Excel Sports.
In order for him to get $33 million in the next three seasons, the Clippers will not activate the club option for the last season of the current contract, which Zubac signed in 2019 and which would bring him $7.5 million, and then sign a new contract that will tie him to the LA team until the end of the 2024/25 season. Zubac already has the longest tenure in the Clippers of all the players from the current roster, and if he stays at the club until the end of the new contract, he will have six and a half seasons as a Clippers player.
With this deal, the Clippers prevented the possibility of Zubac becoming a free agent next summer (after his old contract expires) and signing wherever he wants, and at the same time, they solved the issue of the first center for the near future for a solid price. Zubac, on the other hand, also received security for the next period in his career, and at the same time, he was rewarded with approximately a $4 million increase compared to his previous annual salary.
Zubac joined the team in February 2019, in an exchange with the LA Lakers, where he was drafted in 2016 as the 32nd pick. Zubac, who is only 25, has mostly played in the starting lineup since coming to the Clippers from the LA Lakers in 2019. In four seasons with the Clippers, Zubac played in the first team in 204 of 246 games.
Behind him is the most productive season in the NBA in which he scored 10.3 points per game with an average of 8.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1 block. He also had a shooting percentage above 61 percent for the third year in a row. This season is the seventh in the NBA for Zubac.
Zubac is the second Clippers player to sign an extension thus joining Robert Covington. The LA team hopes to keep veteran Nicolas Batum and reserve center Isaiah Hartenstein, but both are free agents this summer. Clearly, the biggest win for the team will be healthy Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Norman Powell because with them they can attack the title.
Source: Sportske Novosti
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