Former Wildcat Deandre Ayton “frustrated” over no extension

With the NBA off-season has come and gone, former Wildcat Deandre Ayton is “frustrated” after no extension was given by the Phoenix Suns. 

The NBA off-season has been a wild one, but it has now officially come and gone with a lot of action that featured several of our former Wildcats. However, as we all learned on Monday, it is that Deandre Ayton was not one of our Wildcats involved in the action.

For those that have been following the off-season action so far, it is no secret that the former No. 1 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft has been looking for a contract extension for the past couple of months, especially after several other players from his draft class also received massive extensions.

Now 23, Ayton is fresh off a dominant playoff run in which he was a big part of the Phoenix Suns’ success in getting to their first NBA Finals appearance in 28 years, and with his rookie ending in 2022, naturally, it seemed as if Ayton was poised to get some kind of extension.

However, the rookie extension deadline passed and former Wildcat Deandre Ayton failed to sign a new deal with the Phoenix Suns.

The 6-11 center and the Suns had several discussions leading up to the deadline, but as the deadline came and went on Monday afternoon with no deal in place, the former Wildcat center will enter his fourth season without the desired five-year rookie max extension. Ayton was reportedly ‘very unhappy’ over the lack of a deal.

Regardless of peoples’ opinions on whether Ayton is deserving or not, the thing to note here is that this has typically been the market value recently in the NBA for comparable centers and given that Ayton just turned 23 years old and posted 14 double-doubles in his first NBA postseason run, the Suns seem to be severely undervaluing their Bahamian big.

Hopefully, the two parties can quickly come to an agreement, because with Ayton in tow, the Phoenix Suns’ future is bright!