The Cavaliers are facing a major tax bill in 2019, but they will soon be joined by the Warriors as teams that are forking over the most money. Both squads are in line to spend hundreds of millions in tax money owed to the league.
There is a plan to keep the Warriors’ dynasty intact for years to come, as their contract situation, coupled with the perfect timing of their stars entering free agency, allows them to keep their core four together for at least four more years, if not beyond. The first part of that plan got checked off last summer when Kevin Durant took a huge pay cut to allow Steph Curry to sign his max and clear the way for Durant to cash in this coming summer.
From there, it’s going to be Klay Thompson entering free agency in 2019 followed by Draymond Green in 2020. Because of the stagger, the Warriors could theoretically offer max deals to all of them and continue to go into the tax to keep them using their Bird Rights. The question will be whether the team is willing to commit that much money, which will eventually run well over $1 billion as they move into 2021, and whether Thompson and Green will want to continue being pieces of a larger puzzle rather than chasing their own opportunity to become bigger individual stars elsewhere, like Kyrie Irving did this summer.
The latter part is out of their control, but it would seem as though both Green and Thompson are happy to play their roles with the Warriors. Last year Thompson told us his job has been made so much easier by KD and that all he has to do is “run around out there and shoot the ball.” He’s also said he’d consider taking a hometown discount to stay in Golden State.
On Thursday, he reaffirmed his commitment to staying in the Bay, telling Mark Medina of Bay Area News Group that it’s one of his career goals.
“Absolutely,” Thompson told Bay Area News Group. “I’ve always said that. Playing for one team your whole career is definitely special. Only so many guys have done it in professional sports, so it’ll be a goal of mine. Hopefully it all works out.”
It’s increasingly rare to see players stay with one team for their entire careers, sometimes due to players’ desires to leave and other times due to the cruel nature of the business of basketball as teams will move on from a player to shed salary. Thompson is wildly valuable to the Warriors for his shooting and, arguably more importantly, his defensive abilities on the perimeter and wing.
There will be plenty of teams looking to give Thompson a max deal next season in order to tempt the All-Star guard to try and make his own way, but Thompson seems unmoved by that idea. The Lakers will make the biggest push should they strike out on the top names this year, but it seems like it would take a significant change in Thompson’s relationship with the Warriors for him to leave.
Basically, the Warriors would have to ask him to take an offensively large discount for him to move on. Based on what GM Bob Myers told Medina, that doesn’t seem like it will be the case.
“That’s a great thing to hear,” Myers said of Thompson’s feelings about the Warriors. “He’s a type of guy you want. He’s a foundational piece and part of our recent success.”
The Warriors’ dynasty was a product of luck, timing and great scouting and development. To continue for a long time, it needed the same thing and more, like having secondary stars willing to stay despite not having top billing.
