The Warriors took a risk Friday, committing eight-figure salaries through 2017 to Andrew Bogut, who’s played just 44 regular season games over the past two seasons because of multiple injuries. It’s a foray into the unknown that GM Bob Myers appears comfortable with.
“Taking a cue from (co-owner) Joe Lacob, when we see something we like, we try to keep it,” Myers said. “We don’t want it to hit the market. I think that was the same we felt in regards to Steph (Curry). This was an asset we didn’t want to lose. So if it meant betting on our player, we were willing to do that. … Maybe it’s a philosophy of the organization.”
Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group passes along that quote and plenty more in a pair of pieces on the extension. We’ll cover the highlights from those, as well as reaction from others to Golden State’s gamble:
- Thompson pegs the maximum amount Bogut can earn at $41.4MM, and estimates his base salary as $12.9MM for 2014/15, $12MM in ’15/’16, and $11.1MM in ’16/’17. Those numbers are lower than the ones previously reported. The extension is still worth much more than $10MM a year, a threshold that Bogut found important to surpass, according to Thompson.
- Still, a three-year, $30MM deal wouldn’t have been acceptable to Bogut, as fellow Bay Area News Group scribe Tim Kawakami hears. The extension didn’t come cheaply for the Warriors, but the team made the right move in locking him up long-term, Kawakami opines.
- Bogut believes he can attain his incentives, triggered each season if he plays 65 games and makes either the All-Star Game, one of the All-Defensive or All-NBA teams, or is named Defensive Player of the Year. “We came up with a number that was fair for both parties,” Bogut said, according to Thompson. “Obviously, I gave up a little bit now from what we could’ve gotten in the offseason. If you can walk in a straight line and chew gum, there is a premium on 7-footers in the league. I knew that. But I’ve enjoyed my time in the Bay here … so once we came to some common ground, it was a no-brainer for me.”
- The Warriors told Bogut at the end of last season that they wanted to sign him to an extension, and Bogut set Friday as the deadline to come to a deal, Thompson writes. Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle provides detail on how negotiations for the extension got started.
- Bogut sacrificed money in the deal to allow the team to preserve cash for Klay Thompson, who’s extension-eligible next summer, Marcus Thompson tweets.