{"id":817081,"date":"2026-07-22T18:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817081\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:31:16","slug":"victor-wembanyama-explains-taking-pay-cut-on-252m-spurs-contract-after-2026-nba-finals-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817081\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama Explains Taking Pay Cut on $252M Spurs Contract After 2026 NBA Finals Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama hoped to help his team reach its “potential” by taking a discount on his five-year extension, he told The Athletic’s Jason Jones<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We have a good team, we had a very good playoff run, and we had a very good regular season. But what’s even better and greater is our potential,” Wembanyama told Jones. <\/p>\n

“The reality of today’s NBA is that often, the potential of teams is not fulfilled because of money. I just want to make sure it’s never our case.”<\/p>\n

Wembanyama agreed to a five-year, $252 million deal earlier this month that ESPN’s Michael C. Wright<\/a> reported could save the Spurs about $50 million.<\/p>\n

That discount came because Wembanyama took a 25 percent max deal rather than take advantage of a supermax escalator to 30 percent of the cap, per Wright.<\/p>\n

That meant the difference between $303 million and $252 million over the next five years, Wright reported.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama hinted at the discount in his first social media post after signing the contract, which he concluded with the phrase “Whatever it takes.”<\/p>\n

Wembanyama signed his new contract shortly after he and the Spurs lost to the New York Knicks in the 2026 NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

The Knicks built their title team around Jalen Brunson, who took a discount of roughly<\/a> $113 million below his maximum possible contract when re-signing with the team in 2022.<\/p>\n

Brunson said in 2024 he saw the discount as him “wanting to do my part to help this team try and get” a title, per the AP’s Brian Mahoney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That additional room allowed the Knicks to acquire players that would eventually play key roles in the championship run, including Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama could now be hoping the Spurs will be able to find similar success with additional cap space.<\/p>\n

The Spurs have some major decisions are coming up with Keldon Johnson heading into the season on an expiring contract and Stephon Castle eligible for an extension next summer.<\/p>\n

The additional room beneath the salary cap could potentially make a difference in the Spurs’ ability to retain both players for the 2027-28 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama hoped to help his team reach its “potential” by taking a discount…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-817081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}