2019 NBA Offseason Salary Cap Digest: Golden State Warriors

The Warriors earned a spot in the NBA Finals for a fifth straight year in 2019, but health issues slowed them down against the Raptors and now appear likely to compromise their ability to contend for a title next season. With potential free-agents-to-be Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson recovering from a ruptured Achilles and torn ACL, respectively, Golden State may be preparing to commit huge money to two players who will barely see the court in 2019/20.

Here’s where things currently stand for the Warriors financially, as we continue our Offseason Salary Cap Digest series for 2019:

Guaranteed Salary

Player Options

Team Options

  • None

Non-Guaranteed Salary

  • Shaun Livingston ($5,692,308) 1
  • Alfonzo McKinnie ($1,588,231)
  • Total: $7,280,539

Restricted Free Agents

Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds

Projected Salary Cap: $109,000,000
Projected Tax Line: $132,000,000

Offseason Cap Outlook

  • Realistic cap room projection: $0
  • If the Warriors let all their free agents go, they could create some cap room, but that’s extremely unlikely. Thompson, at least, is expected to sign a deal that would put the club over the cap, and Durant, Cousins, Cook, and Looney are all candidates to return too.

Cap Exceptions Available

  • Taxpayer mid-level exception: $5,711,000 4

Footnotes

  1. Livingston’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after June 30.
  2. The salaries for two-way players don’t count against a team’s cap, but their cap holds do during the offseason.
  3. The cap holds for Barnes and West remain on the Warriors’ books because they haven’t been renounced after going unsigned in 2018/19. They can’t be used in a sign-and-trade deal.
  4. This is a projected value. If the Warriors don’t re-sign both Thompson and Durant, they may be able to stay out of tax territory. In that case, they could instead have access to the full mid-level exception ($9,246,000) and the bi-annual exception ($3,619,000).

Note: Minimum-salary and rookie-scale cap holds are estimates based on salary cap projections and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders and RealGM was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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