Top Stories of the Week: Otto Porter’s extension, a poor Summer League performance, and Mystics injuries

We’re now entering the Dog Days of Summer now that most of NBA free agency is over and Summer League is coming to an end as well.

Otto Porter’s now officially the highest paid Wizards player next season

Last week, the Wizards decided to match Otto Porter’s four year, $106 million extension with the Brooklyn Nets. They finally announced it on Thursday.

The offer sheet that the Wizards agreed to includes some peculiar provisions, such as paying Porter 50 percent of his annual salary in October. It also comes with a 15 percent trade kicker if Porter is traded to another team sometime in the next four years. These measures make Porter’s contract sound a little scarier, but they really don’t have much bite to them.

Since Porter has grown quite well with the Wizards’ core backcourt of John Wall and Otto Porter over the past few seasons, this is no surprise. Porter will continue to improve, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his absolute statistical production doesn’t go up dramatically. Porter’s role on this team isn’t to score 30 points a game. Sometimes, we look at that as the be-all, end-all evaluation of a player. Points are important, but there are only so many points teams can score on a basketball team.

Skills, however, are things every team can never get enough of. Porter’s skills include be a catch and shoot player on offense, while grabbing more rebounds and playing strong defense on the other end of the court.

The Wizards lose all their Summer League games

Catch up on our NBA Summer League section to read more on Washington’s five games of .... meh.

Besides the games, we saw some current and former players attend games. John Wall shared fruit snacks while sitting courtside,

while Bradley Beal was also in attendance.

Former Wizards post Drew Gooden III also attended the games where he sat next to the bench. He also gave an interview to Adam Rubin of Truth About It where he gave his input on the Wizards-Celtics rivalry (he’s definitely Team Wizards) and whether he thinks Washington is a free agent destination now.

Free Agency Signings

The Wizards signed Devin Robinson to a two-way contract earlier this week. His signing brought the roster up to 17 players, which is the maximum any team can hold before cutting players during training camp next season.

The free agency focus now goes to John Wall. He won’t be an unrestricted free agent until 2019, but the Wizards have an opportunity to offer him a four-year, $170 million extension that kicks in that season thanks to the Designated Player Provision, a/k/a the “supermax” after making the All-NBA third team last season.

Wall hasn’t taken the offer because he is assessing whether he could qualify for the “supermax” once again next season. If he does, then his contract could be worth more. But if he passes up on the extension AND doesn’t make All-NBA next season, then Wall misses out on a big payday.

Elena Delle Donne earns her fourth All-Star Game appearance

The Mystics’ superstar was named an All-Star starter earlier this week. This is not a surprise in and of itself, since Delle Donne is one of the best and most popular players in the WNBA. However, the Mystics haven’t had an All-Star Game starter since 2010 or 2003, depending on what metric you use.

I tend to go with 2003 because the 2010 game was a WNBA vs. USA Basketball lineup in preparation for the FIBA World Championship that year, while the 2003 All-Star Game was a traditional East-West format that included fan voting.

For most of the Mystics’ history, Chamique Holdsclaw remains the franchise’s most accomplished player. No one has come even close to her level of starpower, at least early on since then. It’s too early to declare Delle Donne as the best Mystics player of all time of course. But in a few years, that may be on people’s minds if Washington can make the Finals or win a championship.

But she and Tayler Hill were injured during the Mystics’ win against the Fever on Friday

It’s one thing for players to be injured. It happens. But two of the Mystics’ key players were injured last night, including one of their key guards.

Here’s hoping that nothing’s serious.

More links

The Mystics went to the National Museum of African American History earlier this week:

Ivory Latta recently released a children’s book that John Wall endorsed. She read it at Hendley elementary School earlier his week:

Kelly Oubre was at the EFM Engineered For Motion Spring/Summer 2018 Runway Show in New York on Thursday. Along the way, he got to hang out with rapper Young Paris:

Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for EFM Engineered For Motion

Lukas Kuba of Truth About It translated an interview that Tomas Satoransky gave to Czech media recently. In it, Satoransky mentioned that he wasn’t an NBA point guard, at least on the Wizards for a number of reasons last season. Besides his positional versatility, Satoransky mentioned that Scott Brooks perhaps didn’t believe that he was well-suited to run a faster-tempo offense.

At his former club, FC Barcelona (the basketball team of course), Satoransky generally played a half-court game and set up plays as opposed to improvising in a faster-paced system. All in all, Satoransky mentioned that he worked on his shooting in Germany, so let’s see how things work out for him this season as a wing player.

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Alright, those are the main story links I have for the week. They talk about the big storylines, but not all of them course. Have another link you’d like to share? Feel free to do so in the comments below or as a FanPost. Enjoy your weekend!