Saturday’s extension with Jordan Poole was the “first domino” in the Warriors‘ financial future and it may lead to the end of Draymond Green‘s time with the organization, writes Tim Kawakami of The Athletic. Poole will receive $123MM in guaranteed money over four years in what Kawakami believes is the team’s most important personnel move since signing Kevin Durant six years ago. The Warriors defined their future even more later in the day with a four-year extension for Andrew Wiggins.
Those deals will lead to a gigantic luxury tax bill and may limit the team’s options with Green, who is also extension-eligible. Kawakami notes that Warriors are currently looking at $190MM in salary and about the same number in tax penalties, which results in a $380MM commitment. Owner Joe Lacob and others in the organization have said they’re not willing to take on an even higher tax burden, and sources tell Kawakami that moving payroll into the $500MM range would result in an annual loss of about $100MM.
Poole is entering the final year of his rookie contract and will make $3.9MM this season before jumping to nearly $28MM in 2023/24. Wiggins’ new deal will reduce his salary by $9.3MM at the same time, so Golden State needs to trim some salary elsewhere to keep its tax around the same level. Green is an obvious target, whether or not he exercises his $27.6MM player option for next season. Kawakami believes it’s likely that Green will pick up that option and his representatives will cooperate with the Warriors to work out a trade.
There’s more on the Warriors:
- Kawakami doesn’t expect the team to consider trading Klay Thompson, even though he’s owed a combined $83.8MM over the next two years. Kawakami states that Thompson is more valuable to the Warriors than he would be to another team and notes that he has been playing small forward more often, which allows more backcourt minutes for Poole and Stephen Curry.
- The Warriors are currently projected to have a $219MM total salary for 2023/24 with a tax bill of $303MM, according to salary cap expert Albert Nahmad (Twitter link). ESPN’s Bobby Marks offers a video breakdown of what Saturday’s extensions will mean for the team’s future.
- After spending a few days away from the team for punching Poole in practice, Green returned Thursday and promised to try to rebuild chemistry with his teammates, per Kendra Andrews of ESPN. “It’s about making sure our team camaraderie is right,” Green said. “You can tell when you’re playing against a team and they have good camaraderie … if not, they can be broken easy … if you have that, you can build through anything. [Our camaraderie doesn’t] get very shaken.”
GSW moving decisively to extend the players they want is good business. Too soon to say with certainty that Draymond will be traded unless he has actually asked for that to happen – we will see what they’re willing to do if they repeat this season.
Yup, only way Draymond leaves GSW is if he personally says he doesn’t want to be there anymore. He has never said anything remotely like that.
If anything Wiggins will later be traded for Lebron or KD haha
Wiggins taking less than his market value proves that you were completely wrong in all your comments about Wiggins hating GSW.
Time will tell about what Draymond will do – his potential market has been significantly reduced. If they repeat, he just might decide to opt out and sign a team friendly deal to retire as a Warrior.
Too soon to say with certainty to say pretty much anything when it comes to what’s gonna happen don’t you think?
Yes, thus my having said “time will tell”.
I definitely expect them to consider trading Klay. Klay would be worth more to a team that desperately needs shooting/experience/credibility like Det/OKC/Orl. I don’t see anything happening during the season but next summer all 3 of those teams would most likely value Klay more than GState will… Dort, Poku plus a future 1st from OKC would be an enticing offer. A team like Orl, Det or Por might even trade a top10 pick for Klay straight up
This season is likely the last one with the current CBA, since one or both sides will be looking to renegotiate. Lacob is campaigning to reduce the luxury tax for teams that draft, develop and extend players instead of having them leave as free agents as has happened so often under the current CBA.
He may get a lot of support from the small market teams that get high draft picks but can’t get them to stay. Also the players may support such a change, because keeping their families in the same place is better than having to move to get the $.
I admire a owner willing to lose money,overpay flawed talent, overlook bad behavior and hold on to fading stars to win .
Lol – since the goal of pro sports teams is winning championships, what GSW has been able to accomplish primarily through drafting and developing talent is quite admirable.
Their culture which you’re jealously disrespecting is such that Wiggins took less to stay with them.
Things the warrior’s owners doesn’t do is overpay flawed talent and hold on to fading stars. When they resign Klay for a discounted price and move on from green after the season I guess all the complaints will be gone.
If they get rid of Green, no more championships. Like, for the next ten years at least. The other dude ain’t the priority, Green is. It’s common sense.
They have an opportunity to win this year and next, with Green. Then extend it into other championship runs. That’s the deal
Thats likely not true because Kuminga/Moody/Poole/Wiseman are going to dominate the league too, on top of Steph/Klay/Wiggins/Looney but also there’s no reason to let him go if he wants to stay – money is not a valid reason, GSW has the money.
I’m not saying he will be but kuminga could be a more athletic version of dray. He locked up Lebron when he was only 18. I’d rather take our chances this year and hope the youth develops then to overpay dray and have it cripple our life after Steph, Klay, and dray. Dray is also the least valuable trade asset of anyone else on the roster besides the 13-15th man. I doubt dray could even fetch a top 20 protected pick.
Tim K is such a clueless loser (blocks anyone on twitter who questions his BS) who hates Draymond, obviously he is going to push that narrative.
GSW is paying everyone, everyone is staying, that $100M “loss” is such a lie, they make profit from other avenues like uhh ticket sales? Why do moron writers always go to the gutter in GSW articles? Why is there NOTHING about how GSW could keep Draymond? Ask yourselves that.
Green is going to need to take a discount no max contract for him. Wiggins did it so could he. Green is getting older with more health concerns so the warriors are saying to him is we will resign you but not at max. So will a team sign him to a max contract?
Trade Draymond, the dynasty and Steph will leave
Let’s see how much or how well Green plays this season, but I’m not sure it will be that easy to find a taker at 27.6M… and they would have to take some salary in return as well. One way or another, taxes are gonna be sky-high next year.