Grading rookie NBA extensions handed out before the deadline

Ahead of the deadline for the NBA’s class of 2017 to ink extensions, we witnessed a handful of deals that will shape teams’ futures both good and bad.

The NBA might be in a state of financial instability but you wouldn’t know it the way several teams have handed out money in recent days.

Players from the 2017 draft class had until 6 PM EST on Dec. 21 to come to an extension with their current teams. We saw many notable names fail to do so, thereby setting themselves up to enter restricted free agency in the summer of 2021.

Lonzo Ball, the No. 2 pick in 2017, John Collins, coming off a 20-10 season, and Lauri Markkanen, a sweet-shooting seven-footer, will all play out the final year of their rookie contracts. Though they’re likely to remain put in the years to follow, that they couldn’t make that commitment official raises questions their respective teams need to be answered before handing over an eight-figure deal.

Those who only recently signed new deals aren’t your superstars or even All-Star caliber players. The guys who represent this draft class in that regard, Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell and Bam Adebayo, were taken care of near the start of free agency.

Nevertheless, the names you’ll find in the slide to follow remain invaluable to the teams they play for. Hence the deals that express appreciation on the part of the organization. Each is different in length and salary. More importantly, every deal means something specific to the team that agreed to it.

Most of those details are to the benefit of the organization. Some less so. Both will wind up impacting the future. We just have to determine to what end.