Warriors Sign Andrew Bogut To Extension

8:08pm: The Warriors have officially announced the extension, via press release.

6:32pm: The Warriors and Andrew Bogut have reached agreement on a contract extension, Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher tweets. It’s a three-year deal for approximately $42MM, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The team has a press conference scheduled for 8pm Central time, presumably to announce the pact.

The base salary is $36MM, reports USA Today’s Sam Amick (on Twitter). The rest is salary Bogut can unlock via incentive clauses, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.com. Bogut can trigger the incentives if he plays in at least 65 games each season and win league honors, such as selection to the All-Star Game, All-Defensive Teams or the Defensive Player of the Year Award, Amick writes. The oft-injured center said earlier this month, shortly after he and agent David Bauman of the Lagardere Unlimited firm began talks with the Warriors, that he’d be willing to agree to incentives related to the number of games he plays. If Bogut can stay healthy and perform like a top-five or top-seven center in the league, he’s likely to get the full amount of his deal, Wojnarowski says (Twitter link).

Bogut said multiple Western Conference teams had already inquired about his plans for free agency, which he was set to hit after this season, when he’s due $14MM under what would have been the final year of his contract under its initial terms. Veterans rarely ink extensions, since they’re limited to three years instead of the four or five years they can get on the open market. Bogut, who’s played just 44 regular season games the past two seasons, took the unusual step, cashing in while the Warriors and other teams still value his ability.

Bogut’s deal starts at $14MM in 2014/15, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com, with declining salaries in the remaining two seasons (Twitter link). That will give the Warriors added flexibility as Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes approach eligibility for extensions of their own, and reduce the team’s commitment to Bogut past his 30th birthday. A $14MM salary next season for Bogut would give the team about $65MM in commitments for next season, well above the projected $62.1MM cap but with plenty of wiggle room under the tax line.

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