Deandre Ayton and the Pacers are in agreement on a four-year offer sheet worth $133 million, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The Suns have 48 hours to match offer sheet, which would be the largest in NBA history.
The Suns haven’t shown interest in negotiating a sign-and-trade with the Pacers for Ayton, who is a restricted free agent. However, with Ayton signing the offer sheet from Indiana, the expectation is that Phoenix will match the offer sheet and retain Ayton. But the franchise's offer may not come until Saturday night, per Wojnarowski.
Ayton can be traded as early as Jan. 15 once the sheet is matched and Ayton would have veto power over a trade for a full year.
Ayton has been looking for a max deal for some time from Phoenix, but both sides were unable to come to an agreement. This follows a season when Ayton averaged 17.2 points and 10.2 rebounds, but the Suns were stunned in the second round of the playoffs in which they lost to the Mavericks in a devastating Game 7 at home 123–90.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported Monday that a sign-and-trade deal could happen after the Pacers finalized a trade that sent Malcolm Brogdon to the Celtics. The move was made in order to create more cap space to give the star center the deal he wanted.
Indiana is also waiving guard Duane Washington along with the players received in the Brogdon trade in order to create enough cap space to sign Ayton to the max deal, per Wojnarowski.
Now the ball is in Phoenix’s court if it intends to match.
