The 2020 draft class is lagging behind

The pandemic class hasn't been extended at as high a rate as other recent classes

The 2020 draft class is lagging behind
Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

We’re still a week away from the start of the 2023-24 season, so it’s tough to analyze any sort of leaguewide trend or dig into what a player or team has been up to so far. There haven’t been any games! But a lot that happened over the summer, and a lot more can still happen between now and next Tuesday, specifically in one area: rookie-scale extensions for the players from the 2020 draft class.

Consider the table below, which shows the number of players from each draft class that appeared in an NBA game, along with the number that received an extension prior to the expiration of their rookie contract, as well as how many of those extended players signed a max or super-max extension. (Some of the players who signed super-max extensions did not reach the super-max criteria.)