© Kyle Terada | 2018 Sep 24
The Golden State Warriors are getting ready to begin one of their more compelling off-seasons in recent years. With it being reported that Kevin Durant is planning to opt-out of his deal and enter free agency along with Klay Thompson being an unrestricted free agent, there is a substantial amount of uncertainty surrounding the franchise that has won three NBA championships since 2015. Joe Lacob and Co. have their work cut out for them in the coming weeks.
ESPN’s NBA Front Office Insider, Bobby Marks, joined the Murph & Mac show Monday morning to discuss some of the contract details that the Warriors are going to have to deal with in the near future.
“The big thing is Golden State will be considered a repeater tax team.” Marks said. “They now have been in the luxury tax for 4-5 years. It will almost double than what it was in previous years because there is a penalty there.”
If the Warriors can bring back the likes of Durant, Thompson, and Green (in 2020) Marks noted that they will only have so much money available to fill out the rest of the roster.
“With Klay coming back on a max, Kevin even with the injuries on a max contract, and Draymond is back on not a super max, but a max contract next year then fill out the roster with minimum contracts and a conservative $5 million dollar number for Kevon Looney.”
However, even if Durant does choose to sign elsewhere, Marks brought up that Golden State will still not have a large amount of money to pursue big free agents.
“[Durant leaving] does help but it still gives you limited options. You’ll still be a luxury-tax team. It’s not like Kevin leaves and all of a sudden you have $35 million in cap space to go out and find his replacement.”
“If the goal is to bring back Klay and then Draymond the following year combined with the Curry number, that basically puts you right at the cap there. You will still be restricted as far as how you can go out and spend.”
DeMarcus Cousins is also a free agent and Marks talked about what his options could entail.
“There are probably two different options for DeMarcus. Does he want to stay in a holding pattern and let some of the big free agents come off the board and see if there is maybe a team out there that is willing to give him one of those one year, $15 million contracts.”
Marks continued:
“I think if he is looking for length on a contract, which is 3-4 years, it will be the mid-level exception which is 9.2 million dollars. I just don’t see a team going out and spending four-years, $70 million or $80 million dollars on DeMarcus Cousins as their number one free agent option this summer.”
Listen to the full interview below, to hear Marks on the Warriors’ payroll, start from the beginning.
