[h1]Why the NBA’s new CBA seems to be good news for the Warriors[/h1]
Perhaps the most interesting and impactful new rule, from a Warriors perspective, is the designated veteran player provision. It allows a select group of megastars, who meet a certain criteria, to re-sign with their current team on a 35 percent max deal even before they would’ve previously been eligible.
According to the Washington Post, the player qualifies if he was on an All-NBA the previous season (or two of the previous three) or won MVP in any of the previous three seasons.
Kevin Durant would’ve qualified for it last summer or even the summer before that, should he have desired an extension. It would’ve raised his max capabilities from 30 to 35 percent and made it more enticing for him to stay in Oklahoma City. So it’s a rule that could’ve hurt the Warriors had it been applied earlier. But it may serve to help them now. Because Steph Curry is in that exact situation this summer.
This is Curry’s eighth season. He would’ve qualified to gobble up only 30 percent of the cap in his max deal. But he won MVP the past two seasons. So he can eat up 35 percent of the projected $102 million salary cap. That would plant his max contract at a projected five years, $207 million, an estimated $80 million more guaranteed than another suitor could offer over the life of the deal. If you figured Curry was heavily leaning toward a return before, it has tilted toward a near lock.
But how does that extra money for Curry affect the rest of the Warriors? Down the road, when Draymond Green and Klay Thompson are up for new deals, it perhaps might. But not this offseason. Because Golden State holds his Bird rights, they can do the rest of their summer business before locking Curry into his deal.
That includes Kevin Durant, the key cog in this entire equation. Durant doesn’t qualify for the designated player exception with the Warriors because they didn’t draft him. But he is completing his 10th season, meaning he can also get a 35 percent max deal. But Golden State doesn’t hold his Bird rights. So he must be signed with cap space.
That is, unless Durant allows the Warriors to take advantage of a non-Bird rights deal. Instead of taking his full max, projected to start at $36 million, it would require him to take a 120 percent raise on his current deal, which would start his new deal around $31.8 million, a more than $4 million paycut.
Why would that benefit the Warriors? It would allow them to retain the rights to veteran free agents Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston and keep their top six together. But if Durant wants his full max — which some would consider likely, given the short-term, financially driven deal he signed this past offseason — then the Warriors would have to renounce Iguodala and Livingston.
Either or both could choose to come back. But the Warriors wouldn’t have much cap space to play with, probably somewhere around $5 million. Both would likely lure much more on the market. So if either or both leave, the Warriors are stuck with little room to fill out a thin bench.
But that’s where another CBA change may help the Warriors. The NBA is raising the mid-level, bi-annual and minimum exceptions by 45 percent next season, according the
Washington Post. That’s news that’ll conceivably help any team over the cap. But it’s a tool that mostly benefits the Cavaliers and Clippers and Warriors of the world.
If Golden State is trying to lure the Zaza Pachulia, David West types to take a paycut and chase a ring, every bit of extra money helps their pursuit. They’ll have a bit more to offer now.
But the Warriors world still revolves around its four stars. And, post-CBA news, it still remains reasonable that they can keep those four together. At least for now.
