Rockets, Kevin Porter Jr. Agree to 4-Year, $82.5M Contract Extension

The Houston Rockets and guard Kevin Porter Jr. agreed to a four-year, $82.5 million contract extension Monday.

Porter's agent, Sam Permut of Roc Nation Sports, provided details of the extension to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. The deal has a "unique structure that allows for significant upside for Porter Jr. and protections for the Rockets."

Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported the deal carries only $15.9 million in guarantees, which are all in the first season of the contract. The three subsequent years are fully non-guaranteed with June trigger dates.

Porter's deal is pretty much without precedent in recent NBA history. While teams sometimes bake fail-safes into contracts, those are largely done in case of a player being injury-prone (e.g. Joel Embiid's rookie-contract extension).

Porter's deal structure is almost entirely based on the Rockets being unsure whether they can trust his conduct. He arrived in Houston with a history of legal issues and a reputation of being a malcontent behind the scenes.

At USC, Porter was suspended indefinitely in 2019 and nearly kicked off the team for his conduct. In August 2020, the then-Cavalier was accused of punching a woman in the face during a fight in downtown Cleveland, though he was never charged with a crime. Three months later, he faced felony gun charges and misdemeanor marijuana possession in Ohio after police found marijuana and a loaded 45-caliber handgun in his car when responding to a crash, though those charges were later dismissed.

The Cavaliers traded Porter to Houston in January 2021 after he threw food during a tirade caused by the team moving his locker. While Porter went nearly a year without incident after his trade to the Rockets, he was suspended for one game last season after leaving a Jan. 1 game against the Denver Nuggets at halftime after an altercation with assistant coach John Lucas.

The laundry list of off-court concerns understandably left the Rockets too leery to hand Porter a fully guaranteed extension, but his talent remains too tantalizing for them to allow him to hit restricted free agency.

Porter averaged 15.6 points, 6.2 assists and 4.4 rebounds in 61 games last season, shooting a career-high 37.5 percent from three-point range. Still just 22 years old, the 6'4" guard and the 20-year-old Jalen Green have all the makings of a blossoming young backcourt if the former can keep his focus solely on improving as a basketball player.

He now has more than 80 million reasons now to stay on the straight and narrow. Meanwhile, the Rockets will have either signed the best contract in basketball if Porter ascends or will be able to cut bait on a low-risk/high-reward bet whenever they want.