Payton Pritchard signs a two-year, $44.2 million extension to stay with the Celtics

Payton Pritchard is staying in Boston for the long haul.

The Celtics guard agreed on Tuesday to a fully guaranteed two-year, $44.2 million contract extension. The deal also has a mutual option for the 2029-30 season.

How the money works

Pritchard is making $7.8 million this season and will make $8.3 million next season on his current deal. The extension starts in 2028-29, when he will earn more than $21 million. The mutual option year is worth nearly $23 million.

It is his second extension with Boston. He signed a four-year, $30 million deal in October 2023.

From trade request to key piece

Boston took Pritchard with the 26th pick in the 2020 draft. His minutes dropped in his second and third seasons and he asked for a trade during his third year. The team kept him and told him a bigger role was coming.

It came. He played all 82 games in 2023-24 and helped Boston win the title, including a 43-foot buzzer-beater to end the first half of the clinching Game 5 of the Finals. A year later he was named the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year.

Last season he started 50 games while Jayson Tatum missed most of the year. He set career highs with 17 points, 5.2 assists and 3.9 rebounds a game.

"Everybody always tries to put people in a box," Pritchard said last month. "And I just feel like, those expectations, I kind of blow them out the water."

Pritchard is 28 and has been one of the league's most durable players. He has played 241 games over the last three seasons.