There have been concerns about the Warriors’ ability to afford Klay Thompson and Draymond Green when their free agency years arrive, but owner Joe Lacob plans to aggressively address the situation this summer, relays Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.
Shortly after wrapping up the team’s third title in four years Friday night, Lacob said he intends to submit extension offers to both players during the offseason.
“All good things cost a lot,” he explained. “We’re going to try to sign Klay and Draymond to extensions this summer. They’ve earned the right to do whatever they want; maybe they want to wait until free agency. I can’t control that. But we’ll do whatever we can to keep them.
“We’ve proven that if we think we’re competing for a championship, we’ll be in the luxury tax. No one wants to be, but we expect to be. All I can tell you is we’re going to sit down and do our planning on how we’re going to improve the team for the future and setting ourselves up in the future. And it could go a number of different ways.”
Thompson is entering the final year of a contract that will pay him $18,988,725 next season. He has spent seven years with the Warriors and is coming off his fourth straight All-Star appearance. Green has two seasons left on his current deal, worth $17,469,565 next season and $18,539,130 in 2019/20. He has been with Golden State for six years and is a three-time All-Star.
Extensions for Thompson and Green would come at the same time the Warriors have to spend big to re-sign Kevin Durant, who is virtually certain to opt out of a $26.25MM salary and enter free agency for the third straight summer. If all three players agree to new contracts, the Warriors would likely be headed for the largest luxury tax bill in NBA history.
Pay the tax screw it, this team is a joy to watch.
We finally agree, Dionis buddy. As Knicks’ fans, we are used to missing the playoffs every year. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy life. I feel blessed to have watched this team, man. Hopefully in 4-5 years when GS Window closes, we can take that next step and actually (just make the playoffs)
This was the funnest style of basketball I’ve seen. Especially that game Steph broke Ray Ray’s record. People who think NBA’s “boring” dont love basketball.
This team has made the nba boring
This team is the reason the NBA should consider a hard cap
Agree
This team has made the rest of the NBA have to step up. They drafted players others teams could have drafted and added a free agent.
The rest of the NBA would have signed KD in a heartbeat. Doesnt change what he said. They deserve credit for hitting on draft picks. Kd made it boring
From 1995 to 2012, the Warriors made the playoffs one time (the 2007 “We Believe” team). The Warriors now win their third title in the last four years. That is pretty astounding…
As a warrior fan who has endured the bad years, this is not boring at all this is exhilarating.
I love that everyone forgets
The Warriors own draft pick was an eligible free agent in 2016. Warriors were faced with paying a max contract to Harrison Barnes or signing this other forward (KD) who was a better player for less money.
While everyone can bitch about the soft salary cap- what irks me is there is no universe ever where Harrison Barnes and KD should be consider comparable and get paid the same. That’s the real issue with the NBA : the legit superstars can’t get paid more and mediocre talent gets paid like suprestars
Warriors play beautiful basketball, the reason they are good is because of their own drafting, they value high character team oriented players, they connect with the community , the owners don’t want to win- they want a dynasty and are willing to put their money where their mouths are – I think every NBA fan wishes their team was run this well.
You might be bored, but evidence shows that the vast majority of fans are not bored. Ratings are up, ticket sales are up, merch sales are up.
The ratings for this years finals are down which is the result of the lack of parity. We all know its not going to take down the sport.
I watched half of game three and none of game 4
The traditional ratings were down comparing game to game from last year, but it is apples and oranges to compare game to game when most series have different amounts of games and each mean something different. The ratings were actually up (including streaming platforms) through game 3. Game 4 was definitely down, but not as much as people seem to be claiming.
This WAPO article written before game 4 also compares the ratings for the season between GSW and Cavs. GSW was up all year long. Sports ratings across the board are way down, but NBA is holding solid despite…
link to washingtonpost.com
Most articles will show that ratings have been up for the last 4 years since the all-time low for the Heat-Spurs Final in 2007. The highest? 1998 Bulls. People like winners.
They would have lost to Houston if Paul doesn’t get hurt.
And Houston would of gotten swept had iguodala not been hurt.
That’s a joke of a statement. And can people please stop saying “would of”
Houston lost by 41 with Iggy healthy.
Speak four yourself… Some of the best basketball seen in a LONG TIME!!! DOMINANCE
Hope Klay gets an extension, but he will most likely wait until Summer of 2019, when the Rising Cap is expected to jump from $101 million in 2018 to $107 million in 2019.
All sports need a hard salary cap plain and simple NBA is legit pathetic second worst professional league besides the MLB letting players collude and set up teams far better then the rest. I watched maybe 15% of the finals already knowing the warriors would win. No need to waste my time watching it when I know the outcome already.
MLB is the worst? lol their lack of salary cap has made competition better
The cap figure where it is, is kind of a joke. It rose, but not enough for the max contracts or the fact you need 2 or 3 of them to compete.
The other teams need to step up & pay tax like Golden State, but I can see Philly coming from the east to destroy Golden State, no one can stop The Process, mark my words…
How can they give 4 guys max deals. And 2 of them over 200 million
NBA has been boring for long time due to not create a real hard cap, like NHL.
There is no parity and team are over cap. Basically, all of them. To get worst, top teams are over luxury tax bu far and they can recruit superstars.
Dinasty is only good when you have merits, not taking the best players only because you have money and want to spend to win rings.
And now, we wee an era od average/mediocre players getting paid huge amount of money.
A new approach has started in MLB regarding to contracts which sabermetrics are used to determine projections and money to pay for players. All those traditionals overpaid old players are long gone.
If sabermetrics steps into NBA, maybe they can reach a point to value players’s real value. Not only using those general numbers but more accuracy performance involving offense, defense, skills, clutch, quality of opponent, playoffs etc.
It would be a tremendous revolution in NBA and we would have an improved quality of game.
Baseball is uniquely qualified to be parsed by statistics. I suppose basketball might be runnerup.
A natural adjustment is coming up– there are fewer longterm contracts being offered nowadays. In 2020 there will be a lot of FAs.
To have a hard cap, you can’t have fully guaranteed contracts, or at least you have to prohibit the aggregate guaranteed amount on all a team’s contracts from being more than 50% of the cap in out years. The NFL is a much stronger league at the ownership level, and was developed from the start by promoting the league first, the teams second and the players third. The NBA was developed from the 1980’s by marketing its stars first and foremost. You can’t do that and then impose a compensation system that’s not tilted toward the stars.