What to know about Cade Cunningham's rookie extension contract with the Detroit Pistons

Cade is now paid.

Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons officially agreed to a five-year, $224 million extension that keeps the 2021 No. 1 overall pick in Detroit through the 2029-30 season. Cunningham, now entering his fourth year in the NBA, has become the face of the franchise while the team as a whole has floundered and changed regimes.

How much money per year?

His base contract extension is worth $224 million and kicks in for the 2025-26 season, with a chance to earn over $45 million more with performance-based incentives this season, the final year of his original rookie contract signed in 2021. Cunningham was able to sign his deal a year before he was slated to hit restricted free agency because of the designated rookie rule in the CBA, which allows a team to sign a player on a rookie deal a year early on a five-year deal to help teams retain homegrown talent.

The deal, worth $44.8 million annually on average, could escalate from a regular rookie max extension to a supermax contract if Cunningham meets one of the criteria set by the league to earn the maximum contract allowed by the league. Since Cunningham's deal is delayed a year, the Pistons still have the same amount of cap space this offseason (around $12 million, after claiming Paul Reed off waivers from Philadelphia) as they did before the deal.

How does Cade get paid more?

A supermax contract is a simplistic name for the designated veteran player extension, introduced in the 2017 offseason, which allows established stars to earn more money from the team they are on compared to the regular max extension that could be offered by other teams. To qualify for a supermax deal, Cunningham has to make an All-NBA team, reserved for the top 15 players in the league, next season.

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Cunningham, who averaged  22.7 points, 7.5 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game on 44.9% overall shooting and 35.5% from 3, would have to play at least 65 games, a feat he has yet to do (despite coming close twice), to meet the minimum game threshold required to win an NBA award.

To quickly illustrate the difference, let's compare Minnesota's Anthony Edwards and Memphis' Desmond Bane. Both were members of the 2020 draft class who received a maximum rookie extension. But Edwards' deal is worth $260 million over five years, compared to $207 million for Bane, because Edwards made second-team All-NBA last year, the final season of his rookie deal, increasing his contract that starts this season.

Cunningham is the first Pistons' first-round draft pick to sign a rookie extension with the team since Andre Drummond.