Phoenix Suns swingman Grayson Allen has emerged as one of the premiere shooters in the league for the 2023-24 season. Tomorrow, the 6'4" shooting guard becomes eligible for a massive extension of his current expiring contract with the Suns.
Allen is owed $8.5 million this year (plus $425,000 in likely incentives). As Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic observes, the Duke product could earn a four-season extension, worth up to $75 million, with the club. That would increase Phoenix's luxury tax obligations by between $65-70 million next year.
Should Allen opt not to ink a fresh deal, however, he could potentially command much more as an unrestricted free agent on the open market. Through 66 contests this year, the 28-year-old is averaging 13.5 points on .509/.479/.884 shooting splits.
He's also chipping in 3.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.6 blocks for the 42-30 Suns. Allen's durability, coupled with that 47.9% three-point rate on 5.8 triple tries, is what could make him a major get in a fairly light free-agent class.
"I try not to think about it too much," Allen said. "One, because it's not a done deal until it's signed. You don't want to count it, start counting stuff too early before it happens."
"Another part of is it's March and we've got 11, 10 games left," Allen continued. "We're getting at a time where you don't want to have stuff like that on your mind cause it's an individual goal for me and right now, it's the Suns and team stuff. I don't want to think about that kind of stuff too much."
Phoenix is currently just 0.5 games behind the sixth- and seventh-seeded Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks. The Suns have the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the league as they wrap up the last 10 contests of its regular season. Ideally, Phoenix would avoid the 7-10 seeds and a guaranteed play-in tournament bracket appearance by sewing up the sixth seed or better.
Allen has been a boon for the Suns, but even with him, the team has been unable to claw its way into the upper echelon of the West. Phoenix expected to emerge as one of the conference's elite powerhouses after trading to acquire former three-time All-Star shooting guard Bradley Beal, plus Allen and now-starting center Jusuf Nurkic while signing a slew of solid wing options to fill out its bench. Instead, the club has been fairly pedestrian on both ends of the hardwood. The team's newly configured "Big Three" of Beal, plus All-Stars Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, hasn't been as impressive together as team president James Jones had no doubt hoped.
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Newsweek contributing writer Alex Kirschenbaum is a hoops fanatic who has managed to parlay his passion into a writing career. ... Read more
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