Kevin Huerter, Hawks Agree to 4-Year, $65M Contract Extension
The Atlanta Hawks and wing Kevin Huerter have reportedly agreed to a four-year, $65 million contract extension, Huerter's agents told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
He is the second player from the team's 2018 draft class to sign a long-term extension, joining star point guard Trae Young, who signed a five-year, $172 million extension—that could be worth $207 million if he's voted onto one of the three All-NBA teams—in August.
The Hawks also locked up John Collins (five years, $125 million) and Clint Capela (two-year, $46 million extension) over the summer.
Young's max extension was a foregone conclusion, while keeping Collins was a priority and Capela's extension made plenty of sense, given how well he's played for the Hawks. But how much the Hawks would feel comfortable paying Huerter in an extension was a bigger question mark this offseason.
The sharpshooter makes sense stylistically as another floor-spacer around Young, with the 23-year-old shooting 37.6 percent from beyond the arc in his career. He was solid for the Hawks in the 2020-21 regular season, averaging 11.9 points in 30.8 minutes per game.
But he thrived in the postseason, coming up with some big-time performances in Atlanta's surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals, including a crucial 27-point outburst in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals vs. the Philadelphia 76ers.
That game became infamous for Ben Simmons passing up a dunk in the fourth quarter—the aftershock of that moment is still rippling throughout Philadelphia—but Huerter's performance was arguably as big of a factor in the win.
It was all the more important for the Hawks considering they were already without De'Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic was battling a knee injury and wasn't 100 percent. Huerter proved he could take on a bigger role for the Hawks moving forward.
"With guys going out, we're definitely telling him we need him to be more aggressive and score the ball more," Young told reporters at the time regarding Huerter's performance. "He's been doing that and he did it tonight."
The Hawks are banking on him doing it plenty in the future, too.
