No Extension Coming, Says Terance Mann
The fifth-year player will enter the season with two years left on his current deal.
PLAYA VISTA — One day after being named the team’s fifth starter by LA Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, forward Terance Mann talked with gathered media ahead of practice Saturday.
“Just ready to get to it,” Mann said when asked what his reaction was to the news that he would be starting the team’s season opener on Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Mann started 36 games last season for the Clippers and has started 92 in total for the franchise when counting regular season, postseason, and play-in. The team has gone 49-43 (.532) in those contests, but they’re 11-3 (.786) in games that Mann starts alongside both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
“I mean, you look at a guy that came in young, did what he was supposed to do and now he's given an opportunity to start,” said Paul George on Saturday when asked what he’s seen out of Mann over the years that has led Mann to this opportunity.
“It is great that Terance is rewarded for being a professional, being mature at his age and coming in, doing what he's supposed to do, having a work ethic, being coachable, and just being a sponge under so many people that he's played with. And then now, his preparation meeting the opportunity, and now is his time. To be put in that lineup, I think he deserved it and he worked his butt off for it. So I think that's what you do from an organizational standpoint. It's something that the other young guys can look towards.”
But one thing that won’t be coming Mann’s way this offseason is a contract extension.
Mann, who is starting the first year of a two-year contract extension that he signed in Oct. 2021, is eligible to sign a three-year contract extension worth up to $54 million, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. The deadline for Mann’s extension talks is Monday, but don’t hold your breath on a deal getting done in the next 48 or so hours.
“Nah,” Mann responded when asked directly on Saturday if there had been any extension talks between himself, his representatives, and the Clippers front office. “Nah. Not happening.”
Mann has been a success story for the Clippers since the organization picked him with the No. 48 overall selection in 2019. Mann joins center DeAndre Jordan as the only second-round picks in franchise history to log at least 5,000 career minutes for the team.
In June 2021, Mann catapulted the Clippers to the franchise’s first-ever Conference Finals berth with a 39-point performance against the Utah Jazz in a Game 6 comeback that featured Mann scoring 20 points in the third quarter alone. Mann started six of the team’s eight games after Leonard went down due to injury in that postseason as the Clippers won four of those six starts.
Mann still has two years and $22 million left on his current extension. Considering his production, impact, and versatility, the Clippers feel as if they’ve got him on a bargain contract. Due to the lack of a major financial uptick on Mann’s part, since the most he can sign for is $54 million over three years, it makes sense for the forward not to sign an extension before Monday’s deadline and play out the season as-is to maximize his value heading into next offseason where he’ll still be eligible to sign yet another extension.
Conversely, as a result of the ongoing discussions with the Philadelphia 76ers about a trade for guard James Harden, it also makes sense on the Clippers’ part to not offer Mann an extension which would take him off the trade block in trade discussions completely despite the team, both publicly and privately, stating that Mann is not on the table in any speculative deal for Harden.
Back at media day in early October, Mann said he was open to signing an extension to remain with the only organization that he’s known.
“Open?” Mann responded when the topic was broached back on Oct. 2. “I've been here five years. Of course I would be open to it.”
Mann’s future will likely hinge upon how he performs as an outright starter for the first time in his career rather than a fill-in that starts when the team needs him to plug a hole from an absent teammate.
With the trade rumblings surrounding them and Harden, and Mann’s lack of an extension, more questions than answers are sure to pop up over the next little while. Mann can go a long way to silencing that chatter with his play, and the team can squash a lot more of it by sticking to their guns despite a contract extension not looming on the horizon.