The Toronto Raptors have a real find in center Jonas Valanciunas, the 23 year old former fifth overall pick in 2011, and they know it. Valanciunas came into the league as a raw big man but has really developed into a quality center and has plenty more room to grow at his young age. The Raptors and Valanciunas are reportedly inching closer to a contract extension that would lock Valanciunas up for four more years, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.
The reported extension is for four years and more than $60 million which would be quite a bargain for Toronto considering the cap is going up next offseason and Valanciunas has crazy potential. Part of Toronto's motivation for wanting to get an extension done is that they don't want the seven foot Lithuanian to hit the open market as a free agent next year when it is very possible that a team will overpay him big time. Next summer more than half the teams in the league will have a lot of cap room so the Raptors wanting to sign Valanciunas to a deal now makes a lot of sense.
Valanciunas' motivation for signing an extension now is so that he wants financial security heading into next season and Eurobasket with his native Lithuania. If Valanciunas were to get hurt before next offseason without a deal it could cost him a lot of money, so taking the extension now is a reasonable decision even if he could probably make much more money on the market next summer.
The Raptors and Valanciunas have until October 31 to get an extension done, as that is the deadline for all players who debuted in 2012, but they likely won't need that much time as the deal should reportedly be done within the next few days.
Valanciunas is coming off his best season in the NBA where he had a 20.6 PER in 80 games and had averages of 12 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. Valanciunas also shot a career high 57 percent from the field and is really blossoming into one of the better big men in the NBA. Toronto has them a young big man whom they can really build around especially if this reported deal gets done.
