NBA latest buzz: Rookie extension impact, star injuries, more

The NBA season is just three days old, but plenty of news has the league buzzing.

Between the flurry of rookie and veteran contract extensions raising questions about contenders' futures, an eye-catching debut for one overhauled franchise and several star injuries dampening the typical optimism from teams to begin the season, it has been a busy start to 2024-25.

What's next for the Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks after both teams inked young stars to noteworthy extensions? Are the injury sagas of Joel Embiid and Kawhi Leonard ending soon? And what lies ahead for the NBA as Abu Dhabi continues to find ways to invest in the league?

We're answering the biggest questions and emptying our notebooks with what we're hearing heading into the season's first weekend.

Jump to a section:
Extension talk in Houston | Atlanta | Denver
Star injury updates | Buzz in Charlotte
Abu Dhabi's investment in the Knicks

What could be next after Jalen Green's unusual extension with Houston?

Windhorst: The three-year, $106 million extension that Green signed on Monday kicked off a lot of discussion around the league as teams and agents studied the deal and each side's motivations. Green getting a third-year player option, an unusual structure for a nine-figure rookie extension, led some executives and agents to believe this deal was designed to be an eventual trade piece for the Rockets. Green was also the only player to get a 10% trade bonus in his rookie deal extension.

Bontemps: And opposing executives saw little downside for Green. In fact, they said this is the type of deal teams would typically sign to lure players away from restricted free agency. Multiple league sources pointed to the three-year, $46 million deal that Chandler Parsons signed 10 years ago with the Dallas Mavericks as a restricted free agent -- which saw him leave the Rockets as a result. Here's what then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said of the deal in a radio interview at the time: "The Mavericks are a smart organization. They obviously wanted to get him. That structure of that [contract] is literally one of the most untradable structures that I've ever seen."

Windhorst: Houston, which was linked to Kevin Durant trade interest over the summer, has put out the message it doesn't intend to make a major trade during this season, sources said. But next year, when Green's salary is on the books at $33 million, and with the trove of draft assets the Rockets own -- especially the picks and swaps involving the Phoenix Suns and Brooklyn Nets -- it could be the basis of a superstar trade offer.

For the Rockets' part, once the team saw Donovan Mitchell and Derrick White extend their contracts over the summer and bypass free agency, they moved on from wanting to save cap space for 2025, sources said. Houston focused on getting deals done with Green and Alperen Sengun, who landed a five-year, $185 million deal on Monday. Sengun garnered All-Star buzz as one of the best young bigs in basketball, but Houston faced a challenge when mapping out Green's deal. Last season, Green averaged 18 points, shot 30% on 3-pointers and had a negative plus/minus before the All-Star break but averaged 23 points, shot 37% on 3-pointers and had one of the team's best plus/minus numbers after the break. The contract ended up reflecting both sides of Green's season.

Bontemps: Rival executives praised Houston for getting Sengun to sign for less than the max, even though it wound up being, in part, because the team gave him a fifth-year player option. Sengun, a favorite of analytical models around the league going back to when he was playing in Europe before being drafted in 2021, opened the season with 25 points, 18 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in Houston's season-opening loss to the Charlotte Hornets Wednesday night.

The Hawks extended Jalen Johnson just before the deadline. What is Atlanta's outlook now?

Windhorst: The Hawks got their five-year, $150 million deal with Johnson submitted to the league office in the final minutes before Monday's 6 p.m. ET deadline, sources said. The deal came together only after Jalen Suggs reached a similar deal with the Orlando Magic. In both Suggs' and Johnson's cases, the teams were willing to boost their offers slightly on the final day to get the deals done, sources said. In Atlanta, there was relief within the organization that it was able to get the high-upside Johnson into a five-year deal without a player option, sources said.

Bontemps: What stood out to opposing scouts and executives I talked to was the structure of Johnson's deal. With the salary cap set to escalate by as much as 10% for the next several seasons with the new television deal starting in 2025-26, having a contract that stays flat (Johnson will earn $30 million each of the next five years) or descends (Suggs will earn $26.7 million in the 2029-30 season) was applauded by rival teams, with the expectation that both players will outperform those contracts down the road.

Windhorst: The Hawks have been middling in the play-in picture over the past few years but have a lot of optionality. They have eight core players age 26 or younger, including the 22-year-old Johnson and 19-year-old No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher, and have two firsts in the highly anticipated 2025 draft, including the Lakers' pick unprotected. Atlanta will be a team to watch on the transaction front because all this gives the Hawks a lot of choices on how to build their roster during the season, especially as the window for Trae Young to extend his contract opens next summer.

What was the significance of the Aaron Gordon and Rudy Gobert extensions?

Bontemps: During the flurry of rookie extensions, two high-profile veteran extensions also were signed this week. Aaron Gordon's four-year, $133 million deal and Rudy Gobert's three-year, $110 million deal brought the total of veteran extensions since the start of the offseason on June 30 to 21, per ESPN's Bobby Marks. Executives around the league pointed to two reasons so many of them have gotten done. For teams, it is helpful to have cost certainty, particularly coming from deals the teams think are solid ones. For players, with the lack of cap space on the horizon next summer -- only Brooklyn and Washington project to have significant room -- it made sense to take a good deal now instead of waiting for a great deal later. Another thing to watch: teams saving their mid-level exceptions to use as trade exceptions later, which was a wrinkle added to the new CBA. We saw Charlotte become the first team to do this in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade.

Windhorst: The Nuggets have been rightly questioned by you and others for not being more aggressive in contract negotiations in recent years, especially as ownership has applied limits to spending. Giving Michael Porter Jr. a full max deal with no protections with his history of back injuries and Jamal Murray a full max with no protections with his history of knee problems is fair to question as two examples. But they did do some work with Gordon this week, getting him to opt into his contract for next season and then extending it. That move will save tens of millions in luxury tax and eight figures in space under the apron next season that, in theory, could be used to bolster the roster.

How soon should we expect Joel Embiid, Khris Middleton and Kawhi Leonard back from injury?

Bontemps: For both the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks, the story leaving Wednesday's season opener was as much about who wasn't playing as who was. The much more noteworthy example of this, of course, was Embiid, who has been ruled out for the first three games of the season due to left knee injury management. On Wednesday, Embiid's time on the court inside Wells Fargo Center was limited to him dribbling during the timeout between the first and second quarters. He did, however, work out in front of reporters on both Monday and Tuesday, and multiple sources continue to say Embiid looks good physically in workouts as he works his way back to game action. Although it's gotten a lot less attention, it's a similar story for Milwaukee, where Khris Middleton missed the opener in Philly after having offseason surgery on both ankles.

Windhorst: The Bucks with Middleton, 76ers with Embiid and LA Clippers with Kawhi Leonard all are kind of in the same boat with these star players' health. Ask all of them and they will tell you their players are making progress and there's optimism that, eventually, they'll have them in the lineup. But in all three situations, there isn't a clear timetable on when the players will be back. None of them are scrimmaging yet, an important step in their returns.

Bontemps: The plan, from sources around both Embiid and Middleton, is similar: Take the time now to make sure both players are feeling good and hope that translates into healthy play in the spring, when both teams hope to make deep playoff runs.

What is the latest on Abu Dhabi's investment in the New York Knicks and NBA?

Windhorst: The government of Abu Dhabi has been developing a relationship with the NBA over the past three years, hosting 10 NBA and Team USA exhibition games. There was perhaps another major step last week, when Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism, the entity that has been bringing American sports, including the NBA and the UFC, to the United Arab Emirates, made a deal with New York Knicks governor Jim Dolan to build a Sphere entertainment venue in Abu Dhabi. (The original Sphere in Las Vegas cost $2.3 billion to construct, and this one will be largely funded by Abu Dhabi.) The Dolan family controls the parent companies that own the Knicks, New York Rangers, Madison Square Garden and the Sphere Las Vegas, which opened last year.

Then, after the Abu Dhabi-Sphere announcement on Oct. 16, the Knicks announced on Oct. 17 that Experience Abu Dhabi, the emirate's tourism arm, had made a multimillion-dollar deal to be the team's jersey patch sponsor. His Excellency Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, the department's chairman, recently told ESPN he'd like to eventually buy an NBA team. Currently, the league limits sovereign wealth funds to passive stakes of up to 20% of teams.

Bontemps: Partnerships like this are going to start highlighting that last point you made. We have already seen the Washington Wizards go this route, when the Qatar Investment Authority bought 5% of Monumental Sports (the parent company overseeing the Wizards, the NHL's Washington Capitals and the WNBA's Washington Mystics) last year. Whenever NBA commissioner Adam Silver has addressed the topic, he has downplayed the idea that the current structure will change anytime soon. But this will remain a topic of conversation around the league, particularly as the prices of franchises continue to escalate to where even some of the world's richest people can't afford to buy an NBA franchise on their own.

Which under-the-radar opener impressed you the most?

Bontemps: What a dream start to the Hornets' season. In the first game on the sideline for Charles Lee as coach, they had a huge come-from-behind victory over the Rockets. It was a turnaround led by a spectacular performance from star guard LaMelo Ball, who had 34 points, 8 rebounds and 11 assists in 38 minutes. It's a huge year for Ball, who has played just 59 games since his breakthrough All-Star season in 2021-22. To help combat that, Ball has taken the Stephen Curry approach to his balky ankles, sources said, wearing strong braces to try to avoid having the same injury issues that have cut short each of his past two seasons. And it wasn't just Ball who impressed, as Tre Mann -- who had discussions with the front office about a rookie contract extension, sources said, before ultimately not signing one -- had 24 points off the bench and could be primed for a big first full season away from the Oklahoma City Thunder after joining Charlotte in the Gordon Hayward deal last season. It was also a tremendous start to Lee's coaching career, and for what the Hornets hope will be a fresh start for the franchise after Michael Jordan sold a majority stake to Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin and Jeff Peterson was hired away from the Brooklyn Nets to run basketball operations.

Windhorst: It's not comfortable to criticize Jordan in any respect, but the Hornets' on-court and business failings during his tenure as controlling owner have flown under the radar. Charlotte is not a small or struggling market. It's loaded with corporate dollars and is growing massively, yet the Hornets have routinely missed financial benchmarks and relied heavily on the league's revenue-sharing system over the years, league officials have said. Schnall and Plotkin, who are still partners with Jordan, got an undervalued asset even when paying roughly a $3 billion valuation that represented a 10-fold value spike from Jordan's initial purchase. That buy-and-sell maneuver might've been Jordan's best financial move of his life other than securing a cut of his Nike brand's gross in perpetuity. A new front office and coaching staff are attempting to turn around the on-court product now, and Charlotte is looking at plenty of business moves including a new practice facility and surrounding real estate development in the near future.