What players make as much as Sexton was offered by Cavs?

What players make as much as Sexton was offered by Cavs? Jordan Clarkson

In the 2017-18 NBA season, a Cleveland Cavaliers team trying desperately to put a contender together on the fly in the final year of LeBron James’ second term made a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers. That trade brought a combo guard named Jordan Clarkson to Cleveland, and he spent about two years and 138 games with the Cavs before he was traded to the Utah Jazz.

Clarkson averaged 15.6 points per game his first year with the Jazz and 16.7 in the postseason as a bench scorer, and the Jazz thought enough of his work in that role that they signed him to a new deal the following offseason: a four-year, $51.52 million deal that comes out to an average annual value of $12.88 million, just a hair under the money offered to Sexton.

After starting every single game as a second-year player, Clarkson began to shift to a bench role and has been exclusively playing as a “Sixth Man” in both Cleveland and Utah, where he has started only four of 327 games. That hasn’t stopped him from making an impact, as he has averaged at least 15 points per game over the past four seasons.

The parallels between Clarkson and Sexton aren’t perfect, as Clarkson is three inches taller with a bit more defensive impact. That being said, his role in the NBA is as a bench scorer, and that earned him just under $13 million per year. If that’s what the Cavs think of Sexton, the deal seems reasonable. One could point to Sexton’s age (23, when Clarkson was 27 when he signed his deal) but that is balanced out by the fact that Clarkson was an unrestricted free agent when he signed his deal.