After Tim Kawakami of The Athletic suggested on a recent episode of the Warriors Plus Minus podcast that he thinks Kevon Looney could be cut this offseason to save the Warriors some money (hat tip to Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports), the veteran center appeared on The Draymond Green Show (YouTube link) and addressed his uncertain future in Golden State.
Looney is under contract for one more season, but he’s coming off a down year and his $8MM salary for 2024/25 is only partially guaranteed for $3MM. If the Warriors cut him, they could try to bring him back on a minimum-salary deal or he could end up signing with a new team after spending his entire nine-year NBA career in Golden State.
“The ball isn’t in my court,” Looney said (story via Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area). “I don’t have full control over my destiny, so I kind of have to play the waiting game, control what I can control. I’ve been here my whole career. I don’t know nothing else. You always want to finish what you started and be somewhere for your whole career, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that’s not realistic. I’m preparing myself for whatever. My family’s out here, the Bay’s been great to me. They treat me like family, I grew up here.
“I haven’t really thought about it too far. I’m trying to see what they’re going to do first before I push the envelope and see what I want to do. … I’ve been a Warrior for life. Even whatever happens, I’m always going to be a Warrior for life.”
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- Looney ranks atop the list compiled by Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports of 15 potential minimum-salary centers the Suns could target this offseason in free agency. Goga Bitadze, Andre Drummond, Daniel Theis, and Luke Kornet round out Bourguet’s top five, though it’s very possible that some of those players will get more than the veteran’s minimum from another team, putting them out of reach for a Phoenix team that can’t offer more than that to outside free agents.
- The Suns officially announced in a press release on Monday that they’ve hired Matt Tellem as an assistant general manager and Brian Gregory as vice president of player programming. The team’s deal with Tellem, a Brooklyn executive, was reported last month, but we hadn’t previously heard about the hiring of Gregory, who has been in the college basketball coaching ranks for several decades, most recently with South Florida. Phoenix is adding another longtime college coach – Mike Hopkins – to Mike Budenholzer‘s staff, as we relayed earlier today.
- Anthony Slater and Sam Vecenie of The Athletic examine some potential targets at No. 52 in this year’s draft for the Warriors, who are looking to replicate the success of last year’s 57th overall pick (Trayce Jackson-Davis). Slater also shares a long list of prospects who have visited Golden State for pre-draft workouts in recent weeks, including Dillon Jones (No. 48 on ESPN’s big board), Keshad Johnson (No. 50), Jalen Bridges (No. 53), Isaac Jones (No. 57), and Antonio Reeves (No. 58), among others.
- In case you missed it, we rounded up several notes on the Lakers, with a focus on their head coaching search, earlier this afternoon.
The Looney disrespect is egregious, but not surprising.
He was noticeably bad last year, especially after DM died in front of him (I heard Looney and Saric were sitting closest to him when he died). That’s a situation we cant expect everyone to just bounce back from.
I think GSW’s biggest issue is Kerr not playing any winning lineups with bigs in them, he only knows how to small ball.
And whom might those bigs be? There aren’t that many bigs that the Warriors can acquire. TJD showed a lot of promise at the end of the season. They need to play better defense. They were at their best when Draymond was playing the 5.
What about Capella?
Big market is pretty brutal MLE and below this year
Your looking at guys like Jonas Drummond Goga and Plumlee
I like Mason and Goga for them but idk how much is left in the tank with Mason and Goga is still more than a bit unknown, Developing TJD might just be the best way to go; sink or swim
What disrespect? He was an awful player last year, and the only reason he has even looked decent is because he’s been surrounded with 3 or 4 all stars his whole career.
He’s awful offensively, he can’t move defensively.
He’s a bad center at 8 mil a year. That’s not disrespect, that’s just the truth
Bad Center at 8 mil? Last season his contract was brought up as one of the best for a center in the entire league… Looney was definitely not the same player this year but 8 mil is a steal if you look at other contracts in the league.
Not sure why people are acting like Looney is the reason the Warriors sucked.
Umm…Maybe because the Warriors sucked when Looney was out on the floor. Contract value doesn’t matter when you are losing.
He was inconsistent last year. He looked great in 2022 but not sure what happened to him. Did the coach’s death effect him that much or marriage. Its a tough decision because there is not much out there that the warriors can get. Maybe they can find something worth getting over seas?
What the heck is “vice president of player programming”? Are they robots now?
Yes that is how the nba fixes games they program the scores into the players duh
Looney is Warriors’ Haslam. He is our own draft pick and have always been underpaid. He does more in the locker room than any veteran. He’s a keeper! In fact, Warriors should sign him to an extension.
$8m is nothing. He actually signed a team friendly contract 2 yrs ago when he was a FA. So it would be terrible if he were to be cut for $5m. He will bounce back next season. He has a solid track record, he’s a winner, and he is only 28. Let’a make him a Warriors for life and build him a statue too. Yes, seriously.