New Orleans Pelicans: Breaking down Brandon Ingram’s new max contract

Breaking down the details of Brandon Ingram’s max-extension with the New Orleans Pelicans

It finally happened, the moment fans have waited for all season. Today, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski announced that Brandon Ingram has agreed to a 5-year, $158 million max contract with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Before I say anything else, this is a moment that fans should rejoice over. Brandon Ingram is slowly becoming one of the NBA’s most elite scoring wings and a bonafide superstar. Now, he’s guaranteed to remain with the Pelicans until he’s 28 years old.

Now that’s the simple part though, what a lot of people don’t know is just what a max contract means and how it works. So for those fans looking to get a better understanding of what this all means, here’s a breakdown.

What signing a max contract means for Brandon Ingram and the New Orleans Pelicans

A max contract in the NBA is the most money or percentage of the salary cap that a player can take up on a given team. This is determined based on the years of experience a given player has in the NBA.

So in Brandon Ingram’s case, he’s coming off of his rookie contract and has 4 seasons of experience. That means he’s allowed to sign a max contract with his team that would be worth 25 percent of the NBA’s 109 million dollar salary cap. (For those of you still confused about what a salary cap is, it’s essentially the budget the NBA gives teams to spend on players. If you want to know more, I’d recommend exploring Spotrac.com.)

That’s how the league determined Ingram’s 153 million dollar contract as it sets up to be worth 31 million dollars annually which would be 25 percent of the salary cap. However, Ingram doesn’t make 31 million dollars a deal for the next five years, instead, his earnings will escalate during each year of the contract which accounts for the NBA salary cap potentially rising.

That means Ingram’s contract will play out like this:

• Year 1- $27,285,000
• Year 2- $29, 476,800
• Year 3- $31,650,600
• Year 4- $33,833,400
• Year 5- $36,016,200

Here’s a little bit more on how this contract affects Ingram. This contract now makes him, the second-highest-paid player on the New Orleans Pelicans, the 10th highest paid small forward in the NBA, and 40th highest-paid player in the entire NBA.

It certainly is a lot of money to reward one player, but given how Brandon Ingram played last season and the upward trajectory that he’s on, I don’t think a single fan or member of the New Orleans Pelicans organization is batting an eye at the move.