Deep dive into 4 Michigan State basketball players' recent NBA contract extensions

In case you don’t follow the NBA all that closely, you likely missed some big news surrounding multiple Michigan State basketball players. Thankfully, I’ve got you covered.

Four former Spartan stars all just signed contract extensions staying with their current teams, which in it of itself is very impressive.

Tom Izzo has a large group of guys in the NBA, and the fact that four of them all signed new contracts within a few days of each other is awesome to see.

But what do these contracts mean for their future? We all know some contracts are just “filler contracts” for role players while other contracts are for the stars and best players on the team. So looking at the contracts themselves, we can get an idea of how each organization views that individual player.

So let’s dive into the four Michigan State Spartans who just signed extensions and see what stands out about their respective deals.

1. Max Christie, Los Angeles Lakers

The first Spartan to sign a new NBA deal was Max Christie with the LA Lakers. This move surprised me a little because Christie hasn’t had the best start to his career, but his contract tells me the Lakers are high on him.

Los Angeles signed Christie to a four-year, $32 million contract on June 30. While that is a ton of money to average folks like us, in NBA terms it isn’t all that much. But the thing that stands out to me is the length of the contract.

Four years is no joke. Many players sign for one or two years for each contract, but Los Angeles giving Christie a four-year contract tells me they like what they see.

Christie is coming off a season where he only averaged 4.2 points per game. But it seems like the Lakers think he will develop and improve drastically in the coming years, so that’s why they gave him this solid contract.