The Trail Blazers have picked up the fourth-year option on Nassir Little‘s rookie scale contract, a source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). The move locks in Little’s $4,171,548 salary for the 2022/23 season.
The 25th pick in the 2019 draft, Little has appeared in 48 games in each of his first two NBA seasons, but has played a limited role. In those 96 total NBA regular-season contests (12.6 MPG), the 21-year-old forward has averaged a modest 4.1 PPG and 2.5 RPG on .450/.302/.719 shooting.
A report last week indicated that Little has been turning heads this offseason and that team officials are intrigued by his development and his potential to contribute to the Blazers. We’ll have to wait for the games to begin to see whether that positive chatter is warranted, but it sounds as if Little should be given the opportunity to play a bigger role in 2021/22.
NBA clubs must make decisions by the end of October on the 2022/23 team options for players on rookie scale contracts. So far, only a handful of those options have been picked up, as our tracker shows, but most of them will likely be exercised in the coming weeks.