Warriors Pick Up Kevon Looney’s 2017/18 Option
The Warriors will exercise the third-year team option on Kevon Looney‘s contract, sources tell Chris Haynes of ESPN.com. Looney will make slightly over $1.23MM next season.
Looney was the 30th pick in the 2015 NBA draft. He was recovering from two hip procedures during his rookie season, which only allowed him to play in a total of five games.
The third-year option on rookie contracts usually get picked up regardless of how the player performed during his first season in the league. If the team hadn’t picked up Looney’s option, he would have been an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Warriors Notes: D. Green, Durant, Speights
- A handful of interesting pieces and quotes have come out of Golden State recently, including a Draymond Green rant about the criticism Kevin Durant has received for deciding to sign with the Warriors. As Anthony Slater of The Bay Area News Group details (via Twitter), Green compared it to an Apple employee joining Google, suggesting that he doesn’t understand why athletes are criticized for prioritizing their happiness and making “business” decisions.
- Meanwhile, Green was the subject of a fascinating feature from Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN.com, who explores the impact the volatile Warriors All-Star big man has on the locker room. While Green’s passion and emotion can be a positive in Golden State, it also has the potential to disrupt the team’s chemistry, as former Warriors center Marreese Speights reportedly told Strauss.
- Finally, Paul Solotaroff of Rolling Stone has a feature story on Durant, who provides a handful of interesting quotes throughout the piece. Notably, the former Oklahoma City star expressed disappointment that the Thunder could never add that final veteran piece to get over the hump and win a title. “Where other teams went out and got that veteran guy, we kept getting younger,” Durant said. The former MVP also touched on his relationship with Russell Westbrook and the difficult phone call he made to Thunder GM Sam Presti and owner Clay Bennett to let them know he had chosen the Warriors.
Warriors Make Three Cuts, Retain JaVale McGee
JaVale McGee appears to have earned a spot on the Warriors’ regular season roster, having survived the cut down to 15 players. Golden State announced three cuts today, tweeting that the team has parted ways with Elliot Williams, Phil Pressey, and Cameron Jones. The moves reduce the club’s roster count from 18 players to the regular season limit of 15.
Unlike McGee, whose deal with the Warriors is fully non-guaranteed, Williams, Pressey, and Jones all had partial guarantees on their contracts. Pressey’s $35K guarantee and Jones’ $50K guarantee were modest, and suggest they could end up landing with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the D-League. However, Williams, a veteran guard, got $250K guaranteed and was no lock to be cut.
With 14 players on guaranteed salaries, the Warriors have a little flexibility with that 15th roster spot. McGee’s salary for the season won’t become fully guaranteed until January 10, so the club could cut him before then and only be on the hook for a prorated portion of his contract. For now though, it seems the Dubs will hang onto the eight-year veteran and give him a chance to compete for minutes.
You can check out the Warriors’ full cap breakdown for 2016/17 right here.
NBA GMs Weigh In On 2016/17 Season
NBA.com has completed its annual survey of NBA general managers, asking each of the league’s 30 GMs an array of questions about the league’s top teams, players, and coaches. As John Schuhmann of NBA.com details in his piece announcing the results, it comes as little surprise that NBA GMs are just as bullish on the Cavaliers‘ and Warriors‘ chances in 2016/17 as the rest of us are — those are the only two teams GMs predicted to become this season’s NBA champion, with Golden State getting 69% of the vote and Cleveland getting 31%.
While there are many responses in the GM survey worth checking out, we’ll focus on rounding up some of the more interesting ones related to rosters and player movement. Let’s dive in…
- LeBron James led the way in votes for 2016/17’s MVP award, but Karl-Anthony Towns was the clear choice for the player most GMs would want to start a franchise with today.
- The Warriors were the only team to receive more than two votes for which team made the best offseason moves — Golden State was the runaway winner at 83.3%, largely due to the signing of Kevin Durant. The addition of Durant was easily voted the move most likely to make the biggest impact this season, and it was also viewed as the most surprising move of the summer, just ahead of Dwyane Wade joining the Bulls.
- The Jazz‘s trade for George Hill received at least one vote for the move likely to have the biggest impact, and it was the winner for the most underrated player acquisition of the offseason.
- Dejounte Murray (Spurs), Kris Dunn (Timberwolves), and Patrick McCaw (Warriors) were considered the biggest steals of the draft by GMs, who voted Milos Teodosic and Sergio Llull as the top international players not currently in the NBA.
- NBA general managers view Tom Thibodeau as the new coach most likely to make an immediate positive impact on his new team, and think Chris Paul is the player most likely to become a future NBA head coach.
- The rules that GMs wants to see changed or modified include the draft lottery system, the number of timeouts per game, and intentional fouling.
McGee Has Good Chance To Make Roster
- Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said center JaVale McGee has a “good chance” of making the team’s regular season roster, Anthony Slater of The Mercury News relays. McGee is signed to a one-year, minimum salary deal with no guaranteed money.
Kerr: Walton Would Have Only Left For Lakers
- Warriors head coach Steve Kerr believes the Lakers are the only team that could have tempted Luke Walton to leave Golden State, writes Joey Ramirez of NBA.com. Walton spent two years on the Warriors’ bench and served as Kerr’s lead assistant last season. He accepted a five-year deal in May to take over in Los Angeles, where he spent the first eight seasons of his playing career. “He’s such a great guy,” Kerr said. “He’s become one of my best friends. We’re all gonna miss him, but we’re all happy for him. I know he wouldn’t have taken any other job but the Laker job to leave Golden State.”
Pierce Doesn't Like Durant's Decision To Join Warriors
- Paul Pierce isn’t a fan of Kevin Durant‘s decision to join the Warriors, as he discussed on a Sirius XM Radio interview that was relayed by NBA.com. The Clippers forward believes Durant should have stayed with the Thunder, rather than join the franchise that vanquished his former team in the Western Conference playoffs. “I understand when you have great players on losing teams who are tired of losing, struggling in the playoffs every year,” Pierce said. “You’re the lone star. I’ve been in that position. I could have left Boston years ago, but I stuck it out. I just feel like when you’re that close, as a competitor, you don’t go join the team that just put you out.”
Bogut Expected Durant To Sign With Warriors
- Even as they were making history with 73 wins, the Warriors were dealing with Kevin Durant rumors all season, Andrew Bogut tells Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com. Bogut believes the Warriors knew well before summer that they were likely to sign Durant, and he says he isn’t surprised that he was traded away. “Andre Iguodala and I knew it was one of us that was going to go, and it was me,” Bogut said. “That’s part of the business. I have no gripes about it. You get a Hall of Famer — he’s going to be a Hall of Famer — in K.D. If I’m the GM, I do the same deal. That’s just the reality of the business.”
Warriors Finals Loss Paved Way For Durant
The Warriors organization was named the 2016 ENCORE winner on Monday night. The prestigious award is given by the Stanford Graduate School of Business to the entrepreneurial company of the year. Team owner Joe Lacob, along with Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala, attended the ceremony and addressed a number of topics regarding the team and Durant’s free agency. One notable admission came from Durant, who acknowledged that he likely wouldn’t have ended up signing with Golden State this summer had it defeated the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, Anthony Slater of The Mercury News relays, along with a number of other details below:
When asked if the Warriors winning the 2015/16 NBA title would have made signing with them less interesting, Durant responded:
“I was telling one of my friends, [his agent] Rich [Kleiman], who’s here, we were watching Game 7. Well, as it started to unfold, it was, ‘No question, no way could you go to this team.’ And I was just like a kid, like, in a candy shop. I’d get wide open 3s, I could just run up and down the court, get wide open layups. I was basically begging him. I was like, yo, this would be nice. So as I was thinking about my decision and who I was gonna play for, this team came to mind. You know, as they lost, it became more and more real every day. You start to think about it even more. To see if I would fit. Then once I sat down with these guys, everything that I wanted to know about them they kinda showed me. But we don’t have to talk about it though because they didn’t get the job done and they came after me and who knows what would’ve happened. But I guess you could say I’m glad that they lost.”
When pressed for a more detailed response as to why he chose the Warriors, Durant said:
“It felt like it was a perfect fit. It was something I was searching for when I sat down and talked to these guys. I wanted to see if what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen on the outside is really true. Do these guys really genuinely love each other? They work together. You hear family a lot. That’s just a word sometimes, but this is really a lifestyle here. You can feel it when you walk in the door, in the practice facility, everybody is just together. That’s something that I can appreciate as a basketball player and someone who values relationships. You can tell that that’s what they stand on, that’s what we stand on. I feel really grateful to play for a team like that and play with a bunch of players who are selfless and enjoy the game in its purest form. They make it about the players, they make it about the environment, so it was really an easy choice.”
Discussing what makes the Warriors’ culture as an organization so special, Lacob used Iguodala as a prime example, saying:
“Sometimes I have the privilege of speaking to people. Andre’s story is my favorite story. To come in, as a player, he could’ve signed anywhere. He could’ve signed with us. Actually I get credit for that. I should give Andre credit. He picked us. We came from another meeting and we sat down and prepared to meet Andre and tell him why we think he’d be a good fit. About two minutes into the presentation, he said, ‘Stop, stop, I want to play for you guys.’ That’s what he said. It’s a true story. I said, ‘We have some DVDs here.’ And he said, ‘I don’t need to see them.’ I said, ‘We have no way to sign you. We’re way over the cap. That’s nice Andre. But we have no way, we can’t, we’re kinda wasting your time.’ He said, ‘It’s OK, I’ll wait for you to figure it out.’ Meanwhile, he’s given deadlines by other teams. You have until midnight until we’re going away. Andre says fine. Team 1 went away. Another team put a deadline on him. You have until noon the day. More money. More years. He said ‘No, I’m waiting on the Warriors.’ Which is unbelievable to me. He not only makes that sacrifice but has the patience to see what he wanted. Most players don’t see what they want. Then he comes to our team, All-Star, Olympic medalist. Plays with us for a year, does great.
Next year Steve Kerr is hired. Steve asks him to come off the bench. Some of you might perceive that as easy. I’d equate that to some of you. You might be VP or president of your company and your chairman comes in and says, ‘We don’t need you to be VP anymore, you’re going to be the director. You deserve to be a VP, but we’re gonna knock you down a level because it’s good for the company.’ So Andre took all that, didn’t go home. When the media asked him, ‘Andre, what do you really think? Isn’t it BS that you’re not starting? You can tell me.’ All year, nothing. Professional, humble, accepted his position. We’re down 2-1 to Cleveland. In the biggest moment in the franchise’s history the last 40 years, Steve Kerr says ‘Andre, now, we need you now.’ He was ready. When you ask about culture, that’s culture.”
Discussing his free agent meeting with the team, Durant relayed the following:
“I was anxious to see what they’re all about. You hear a lot of about them. They’re on SportsCenter every day. One thing stood out to me, I had a friend tell me — that never played basketball, not even athletic — the first thing she said was, ‘When I watch Stephen Curry play, it makes me feel like I can play the game of basketball.’ So I asked her, ‘So how do I make you feel?’…That shows, like Andre said, when you play freely and have fun with the game, it just shows that it touches a lot of people that may not just be in that immediate circle of NBA or basketball or sports in general. So when they came into the meeting, I was really looking for that energy and I felt it from the beginning. It was just so pure. It was a feeling I couldn’t ignore. I wanted to be a part of it. No matter what happened, I wanted to be a part of it.”
CBA Changes Could Affect Durant Re-Signing
- Changes in the collective bargaining agreement could be the biggest obstacle to Kevin Durant re-signing with the Warriors next summer, writes Dan Feldman of NBCSports.com. While it would be a virtual certainty under the current CBA, a lower salary cap or changes to non-Bird Rights could complicate Golden State’s effort to keep Durant.