Malik Monk resurrected his career with the Los Angeles Lakers and now has a much more lucrative deal with Sacramento. (LA Lakers Photo)
Kentucky coach John Calipari seems to be everywhere on the recruiting trail and making inroads with a lot of big-time players like he did when he first got to UK.
He’s even in Spain now to watch several high-profile recruits, including DJ Wagner.
If he needs another selling point for Kentucky basketball, he certainly got in a short period Thursday night/Friday night with several NBA contract signings.
— Devin Booker agreed to a four-year, $224 million supermax extension with the Phoenix Suns. The deal begins in 2024-25 and brings his contract value to six years and $295 million by the end in 2028. Not bad for a 25-year-old player who was not even a starter his one year at UK when the Cats went 38-1.
He was the 13th pick in the 2015 draft and helped the Suns get to the NBA Finals last season when he averaged 26.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game
Booker, 25, has become the face of the Suns franchise since being drafted 13th overall by Phoenix in the summer of 2015, including leading the Suns — alongside future Hall of Famer Chris Paul — to the NBA finals in 2021.
Now, he is officially tethered to Phoenix through the 2027-28 season after agreeing to this four-year extension, which won’t even begin until after his current contract expires following the 2023-24 season.
— Karl-Anthony Towns accepted a four-year $224 million super max extension with Minnesota starting with the 2024-25 season. His total contract is now valued at $295 million.
He’s 26 years old and was Booker’s teammate on the 2014-15 UK team.
— It was not the kind of money that Booker or Towns received, but Malik Monk got rewarded for not taking the $6.4 million to stay with the Lakers when he signed a two-year, $19-million deal with Sacramento where he will be reunited with former UK backcourt teammate De’Aaron Fox.
Monk, 24, averaged 13.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game last season and shot 39 percent from 3 when some wondered if his NBA career might be over.
— Kevin Knox also extended his NBA career by signing a two-year, $6 million guaranteed deal with the Detroit Pistons. Knox was the No. 9 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft and has averaged 7.7 points, 2.9 rebounds and 18.9 minutes per game in 212 NBA games. Knox, 23, has shot 34 percent overall from 3-point range in those games. He played for the New York Knicks until being traded to Atlanta in January.
Again, not the kind of money Booker and Towns got but another former Calipari player at UK who is going to make NBA money for at least two more seasons. My guess is that current UK recruits pay a lot of attention to all those numbers.
