1:26pm: The Warriors have officially exercised Jones’ fourth-year option, the team confirmed today in a press release.
10:01am: The Warriors anticipate picking up their fourth-year team option on center Damian Jones, a league source tells Mark Medina of The Bay Area News Group. The team has until Wednesday’s deadline to make the move official.
Exercising Jones’ option would add $2,305,057 in guaranteed money to Golden State’s books for 2019/20. While that’s not a huge cap charge, it will likely be about $700K higher than the cap hit for a veteran’s minimum salary. That difference would increase the projected tax bill for a Warriors team that will be way over the luxury tax threshold if Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson return.
Still, it should be a worthwhile investment for the Warriors, who turned down Kevon Looney‘s rookie scale option a year ago and then watched him outperform his contract during the 2017/18 season. The Dubs were fortunate to retain Looney anyway, but they apparently don’t want to roll the dice again with Jones, who is off to a solid start in 2018/19. In eight games (all starts), the 23-year-old has averaged 6.0 PPG, 2.4 RPG, and 1.4 BPG with a league-high .778 FG%.
We’re tracking all of the 2019/20 rookie scale option decisions right here.
Learned from the Looney situation last season. Jones looks good so far, far better than previous seasons.