The Milwaukee Bucks and shooting guard AJ Green have agreed to a four-year, $45 million extension, a league source confirmed to The Athletic. ESPN was first to report.
Green, 26, is coming off the best season of his three-year NBA career and his first season as a major contributor for the Bucks. In 73 games last season, Green averaged 7.4 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 22.7 minutes per game, while knocking down 42.7 percent of his five 3-point attempts per game.
In the Bucks’ first-round loss to the Indiana Pacers, Green upped his production with 11.0 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 27 minutes per game, and he knocked down 51.4 percent on seven 3-point attempts per game. Bucks head coach Doc Rivers inserted Green into the starting lineup for Milwaukee’s do-or-die Game 5 in Indiana, and Green scored a playoff career-high 19 points while playing 46 minutes in the loss.
The Northern Iowa product, who originally signed a two-way contract as an undrafted free agent in July 2022, has been extension-eligible since early July and general manager Jon Horst has been unafraid to share how important he believed it was for the organization to extend Green long-term.
“First and foremost, the day that he became officially eligible to have extension conversations, he was the first call I made. I called him,” Horst told The Athletic in Las Vegas in July. “We didn’t dive deep into negotiations, but I just told him how much we love him, believe in him, and want him here long term. And I did the same thing with his agent, Matt Bollero, who I love and respect in this business.
“And so we’ve already made the contact. AJ wants to be here, AJ wants to figure something out. Obviously, we’ve got to figure a deal out and we have the whole season to do it. I hope it doesn’t take that long. I think they hope it doesn’t take that long either, but as the dust starts to settle on a pretty busy offseason, that’ll be the most important thing for us to figure out with AJ. And I know he feels the same about trying to figure it out with us.”
Horst shared a similar sentiment again on media day at the start of training camp, and now the Bucks have agreed to an extension that keeps Green in Milwaukee on an affordable contract through the 2029-30 season. To his credit, Green informed reporters that there was little that he could do in contract negotiations.
“That’s why you have an agent, right?” the shooting guard said on Sep. 30. “My job is just to control everything I can right there on the court, in the gym — be a great teammate and work hard, go about the same stuff that I’ve tried to be about in my time here and trust that my agent — I love that dude — is going to take care of whatever needs to be taken care of. That’s what I hired him to do.
“And I trust him and the front office and Jon to come to a good place, Lord willing.”
Green started all four of the Bucks’ preseason games this season and averaged 11.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 20.4 minutes per game while also knocking down 46.2 percent from deep on 6.5 3-point attempts per game.
