The Clippers and Lou Williams have reached an agreement to fully guarantee the Sixth Man of the Year’s salary for the 2020/21 season, agent Wallace Prather tells Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
[RELATED: Lou Williams Named Sixth Man of the Year]
Williams has two years left on his current contract, with a fully guaranteed $8MM salary for 2019/20. Previously, the final year of that deal had only been partially guaranteed for $1.5MM. As a result of this agreement, the full $8MM for ’20/21 will now be guaranteed.
As Charania notes in a follow-up tweet, it’s rare for a team to agree to increase a player’s guarantee without any real impetus to do so, since it reduces the club’s flexibility. But Williams’ contract is already one of the most team-friendly deals in the league and it’s unlikely that the Clippers would have taken advantage of the partial guarantee to waive him in 2020, so it makes some sense to reward him early.
Of course, the move also comes at a time when the Clippers are courting free agents, including Kawhi Leonard — a gesture of goodwill toward one of their top players probably won’t hurt the perception of the franchise in the eyes of players considering joining the team.
In 2018/19, Williams averaged 20.0 PPG and posted new career bests in APG (5.4) and RPG (3.0), with a shooting line of .425/.361/.876. Although he came off the bench for all but one game, he was Los Angeles’ leading scorer (not including Tobias Harris, who departed in a midseason deal).
I bet rockets wish they could do this deal over …. sweet lu montrez and bev looking pretty good right now over cp3 chins.
This has to be the most team friendly contract in the league.
The numbers were surprising from day 1. It’s like he signed low on purpose to make him mad & motivated from being underpaid!
And with all the overpays this week it looks even worse.
$8M is a steal. Williams is fun to watch. As much accolades as he gets, he feels underrated.
Trevor Ariza continues to make $12-$15M annually while sweet Lou getting paid 8M peanuts.