A two-year, $16 million deal seems pretty “cheap” in today’s NBA. But for the Suns, re-signing Josh Okogie for $7.7 million next year costs a lot more…
Because the salaries of the workforce already easily exceeded the “salary cap” (obviously behind the 150 million per year of the trio Kevin Durant – Devin Booker – Bradley Beal), it's here “luxury tax” of the franchise which will explode. With this new signing, the penalty increases by 47 million dollars at once according to Yossi Gozlan's calculationsreaching $205.4 million. This is a record in league history, which should erase the $176.9 million paid by the Warriors this season!
And bringing back Josh Okogie will actually cost Suns owner Mat Ishbia more than $55 million.
At this price, we must hope that the team, now led by Mike Budenholzer, does not stop its run in the first round of the playoffs. Because otherwise, with the new collective agreement that punishes spendthrift teams more harshly, the team boss will probably be forced to quickly blow up this group.
In addition to this record luxury tax, the Suns will become the first team to spend more than $400 million ($223 million in salary + $205 million in luxury tax) to pay its players…
– Luxury tax : in the NBA, the salary cap is not strict, and the NBA allows the richest franchises to exceed the threshold set with a tolerance margin of around 20%. In this case, next year, franchises would normally have been able to spend up to $171 million. Then, for each dollar spent above this ceiling, franchises must pay the “luxury tax” to the NBA. A kind of tax that can be very expensive. Since 2024, the NBA has further punished franchises that spend too much with supervised recruitment.
