Oso Ighodaro’s extension: why the Suns kept his $2.5 million option and pushed the raise to 2028-29

The Phoenix Suns locked in Oso Ighodaro without spending a dollar of the cap room they are counting on: by picking up his $2.49 million option for 2027-28 and starting the new money a year later, they pushed his raise to 2028-29, the first season after Jalen Green’s contract ends.

Shams Charania reported the extension at three years and $29 million, running from 2028-29 through 2030-31, and Kelly Iko reported that it is fully guaranteed. That works out to just under $10 million a season. Counting the option year, Hoops Rumors put the total at about $31.5 million over four seasons, or roughly $7.9 million a year, for a center taken 40th in the 2024 draft. These are reported terms; the Suns had not announced the deal when this was written.

Why the timing is the point

Phoenix is a taxpaying team right now and the option year keeps the bill flat. Public tracker JJNBA, updated October 18 and not yet showing the extension, lists the Suns at $213.78 million for tax purposes this season, including $23.2 million in dead money. That is $13.35 million over the league’s $200.428 million tax line and $4.76 million over the first apron, with $7.91 million left below the second apron, which is a hard cap for them this season.

Nothing in the deal touches 2026-27 or 2027-28. In 2027-28, JJNBA projects Phoenix about $15.1 million under its estimated tax line with Ighodaro at his option figure. Had the Suns folded that season into a new deal at full price, roughly $7 million more would have landed in the year they are trying to slide out of the tax. The raise instead starts when Green’s $36 million season is gone; adding about $9.7 million to the 2028-29 commitments puts Phoenix near $167 million before filling the roster.

The rule behind it

Because Ighodaro signed a four-year minimum deal as a second-round pick, this is a veteran extension, not a rookie-scale one. That gives Phoenix room to choose where new years begin, as long as the first-year salary stays within the league’s cap on veteran extension raises; a number near $10 million sits comfortably inside it. The cost is certainty in the other direction: the Suns now owe him through 2030-31 whatever his free-throw shooting does, and he is a career 49.1 percent shooter from the line.

The price tracks the market. Hoops Rumors set it against Day’Ron Sharpe at $10 million a year, Zach Collins at $8.5 million and Jaxson Hayes at $6 million. Ighodaro is the fifth Suns rotation player to sign a multiyear deal this offseason, after Dillon Brooks (three years, $73 million), Collin Gillespie (four years, $48 million), Mark Williams (three years, $38 million) and Jordan Goodwin (three years, $19 million). Bradley Beal’s stretched $19.38 million also stays on the books through 2029-30. The full sheet is on the Suns salaries page.

What comes next

With Mark Williams out after shoulder surgery, Ighodaro and Khaman Maluach are competing to start at center. The Suns open the season at the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday, October 21, at 10 p.m. ET (Game Center).