Ajay Mitchell's second-round salary bought top-100 production, and his next contract will reset the price
Ajay Mitchell's value to Oklahoma City sits in a gap: his salary was set by where he was drafted, and his production was set by what he became.
The Oklahoma City Thunder took him 38th in the 2024 draft, after using their first-round picks on Nikola Topic and Dillon Jones. Jones is no longer with the team, and Topic has played just 10 NBA games since.
Mitchell went the other way. In his second season, the former UC Santa Barbara guard averaged 13.6 points and 3.6 assists while shooting 48.5% from the field. He was a guard who could score inside the offense without needing it built around him.
He added 3.3 rebounds and 1.2 steals a game, and his 34.7% from three was enough to keep defenses honest. That made him one of the top scoring options on a championship contending team.
Then the playoffs raised the ceiling. In the second round against the Los Angeles Lakers he averaged 22.5 points and 6 assists on 56.3% shooting, which is more creation than his regular season role asked of him.
The run did not end with him at full strength. He was hurt early in the series against the San Antonio Spurs, and losing him was a vital blow to the Thunder's offense.
That body of work is why a recent redraft of the 2024 class moved him to No. 4, behind Stephon Castle, Alex Sarr and Matas Buzelis. Jaylen Wells was the only other second-round pick to land in that redraft's lottery.
Now the money. Last season Mitchell was paid like the 302nd player in the league and produced like the 85th, out of 435 rated players.
The season before, the two lines sat close together: he was paid like the 295th and produced like the 266th. The salary barely moved between the two years, while the production climbed past more than 180 players.
That climb took his WAGE Score from 51 in 2024-25 to 80 last season, which places him in the Smart Money tier.
This works because a second-round contract is priced by the draft slot, not by what the player turns into. Mitchell held a rotation spot, then became a playoff scorer, and the price stayed where the draft slot put it.
That shows in what each unit of his output cost. By cost per unit of production he was the 23rd cheapest of 399 rated players last season, on a $3.0M salary.
So the surplus answer is plain: OKC got production near the top fifth of the league for a bill in the bottom third, from a second-round slot.
The caveat is timing. He appeared in 57 of the team's 82 games, and one breakout season after a modest first year is a small sample for pricing a long contract.
At the Thunder's media day on Sept. 28, the third-year guard was framed as a candidate for a larger role in 2026-27. That is where the second question begins.
It is harder, because the terms of his next deal do not exist yet. What does exist is a roster that just gave up a starter to save money: the Thunder traded Lu Dort to the Atlanta Hawks this offseason in a cost-cutting move.
That opened the fifth starting spot, which Dort held for seven seasons, next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Mitchell is one of the prime candidates, along with Cason Wallace, whom general manager Sam Presti hinted at as the most seamless replacement in his preseason press conference.
Wallace is seen as the team's best perimeter defender, has started roughly half of his career games, and got a Game 1 start in the 2025 NBA Finals.
Wallace's extension deadline is Oct. 19, and both guards are expected to sign extensions with OKC within the next year. Aside from the top three, they are the most important secondary players on the roster.
I like Mitchell's case either way, starting or not. His value last season came from scoring and creating, and that carries across lineups in a way a starting label does not.
The price is what changes. If his next salary pays him like a top-100 player, the production has to hold near the 85th spot it reached last season rather than slide back toward the 266th of his first year.
That is the real test of the extension: not whether Mitchell is good, but whether the 2025-26 version is the baseline or the peak. It's early, and this can flip either way once a full season in a bigger role is on the tape.
Zoom out: few rated players in the league returned more production per dollar last season, and a Thunder team holding one championship ring and chasing another now has to decide how much of that gap it can afford to close.