Portland Trail Blazers guard Anferni Simmons has agreed to a four-year, $ 100 million contract extension, Bill Duffy, his agent for BDA Sports + WME Sports, told ESPN’s Adrian Wozniacki.
Simmons, who turned 23 on June 8, scored a career-high 17.3 points in 57 games for Portland last season, starting at 29.5 minutes – 30 per game. After CJ McCullum, the mainstay of the franchise, was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans and superstar guard Damien Lillard was removed for the season after pelvic surgery, he took over as the team’s primary ballhandler in the stretch.
In those 30 games Simmons started, he averaged 22 points per game and attempted 45 percent off-field and 41.5 percent in the 3-point range – on average, less than 10 3-pointers per night.
Simmons, one of the youngest players in the 2018 NBA Draft, ranked 24th from IMG Academy, was selected a few weeks after turning 19. He rarely played as a rookie, after which he became a backup guard. The previous two seasons before the Trail Blazers played a more important role this season.
After agreeing to the deal, Simmons is officially one of Portland’s building blocks, as he replaces McCullum with Lillard, who could be one of the NBA’s most explosive offensive backcourts next season.
ESPN’s Tim Bontemps contributed to this report.