In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Charlotte Hornets inked Brandon Miller to a contract extension. The team won’t say it, but reports are that it’s a five year, $209 million extension.

It’s not quite a max deal. The first year is reportedly close to the maximum value, but the deal decreases in value in years two and three before rising in the final two years. He’ll be under contract until 2032.

The structure of the deal is interesting. I’m sure Jeff Peterson and the front office have planned out how they plan on allocating salary cap space in each year and made sure Miller’s deal fits into that.

The deal shows that the current regime views Miller as a cornerstone of the team moving forward. It also shows more of what the actual goal of the team is from a basketball perspective. The Hornets aren’t trying to be bad. They’re trying to win games.

I feel like I’ve written some version of this post a few times, but I think it bears repeating whenever the Hornets show us what they’re trying to do. The LaMelo Ball trade seemed to signal to a lot of people that the Hornets weren’t serious about winning. They were deliberately making themselves worse to save money or delay the pressure of trying to win or some other motive separate from winning. But the other moves they’ve made around that one go against that perception. The front office has acquired veteran players that should play winning basketball right away, and they immediately replaced Ball’s outgoing $40 million salary with Miller’s $44 million salary and significantly longer contract.

If the Hornets were in full on asset collection mode, I don’t think this contract gets done. Miller maybe gets an extension of some kind, but not five years. The team is not positioning themselves to offload him for more future assets. Instead, they signaled once again that they are going to keep adding and retaining talent, but it’s going to be players that fit the style that they want. While Miller has dealt with injuries the last couple of years, he fits the Hornets’ archetype. He plays unselfish basketball and takes both ends of the court seriously. That kind of play is going to be rewarded here. That’s not to say LaMelo is selfish, but I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say that it’s a lot easier to see Miller’s style of play translating to high leverage basketball games in the future.

Brandon Miller is the new face of the franchise. He’s a big wing that can create his own shot and help facilitate the offense while making plays on the defensive end. That’s a rare archetype and one that any team would want to build around. Locking him down for as long as possible on a huge contract shows that the Hornets are serious about adding talent and winning. The winning might not start this year, but it’s getting closer, and the front office knows how they want to get there.