The Celtics and a security guard Peyton Pritchard have reached an agreement on a contract extension with the veterans, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania (Link to Twitter), who learned from Pritchard’s agents at CAA that the two-year deal is worth $44.2 million.
The contract includes one standard guaranteed year with a mutual option (team and player) for the 2029/30 season, according to Charania.
Pritchard, 28, played a key role on the Celtics’ championship team in 2024 and then won Sixth Man of the Year in 2025. However, the best season of his six-year NBA career came in 2025/26, when he took on a bigger role after being traded Jrue’s holiday to Portland and Achilles’ tear, which receded into the background Jason Tatum for most of the season.
Starting just 17 times in his first five NBA seasons, Pritchard started 50 of 79 regular season games in 25/26 for a career average of 32.4 minutes per night. He also posted career highs in points (17.0), assists (5.2) and rebounds (3.9) per game while posting a strong .464/.377/.890 shooting line.
Pritchard, who signed a four-year, $30 million rookie deal in 2023, is entering the third year of that contract. He will earn an estimated $7.77 million this season and $8.3 million in 2027/28 before his new deal kicks in 28/29. With two guaranteed years remaining on his current contract, he would not be eligible to sign an extension this season unless he signs a new deal by Oct. 19.
Since he is making less than the projected NBA average salary for this season ($15,163,000), Pritchard’s maximum starting salary in the extension is $21,228,200, which is 140% of that number. An 8% raise would result in a second-year salary of $22,926,456 and a two-year salary of $44,154,656. Based on Charania’s reports, it appears that the Celtics guard will receive those max amounts.
The mutual pick, which has become popular in the NBA in recent months after not being used in a contract for more than two decades, means that each side has the ability to choose Art for 2029/20 rather than elect outside. In other words, the option could be exercised by either Pritchard or the Celtics, and both sides would have to waive him in order for him to gain free agency. In all likelihood, the only scenario in which both player and team would opt out of that option would be to negotiate a new contract at that time.
How our tracker reveals that Pritchard has become the third Celtic to extend the veteran’s contract since the start of the 2026/27 campaign. Nehemiah of Quetta (four years, $56 million) and Jordan Walsh (three years, $15.75 million).
