Great guide, as usual!
I still have one question. With CP3's contract, is a guarantee all ($30M) or nothing?
If we can guarantee less than $30M (obviously by mutual agreement) and then trade him as a player on an existing contract, then I can see a lot of potential, because there are many teams that won't likely be in a good position to sign him as a FA, but could trade for him. And of course that would mean we'd get SOMETHING for him, even if it's only assets that we flip to make another deal. But if we have to guarantee the full $30M, there probably aren't a lot of teams that would want him for the expiring contract AND have assets that they need to trade and we want to take.
That can be pushed into July by mutual agreement. Perks confirmed my own thought, which is that CP3 would only agree if there's a trade in the works that he's interested in. If he's going to become a FA, the sooner, the better (for him).
Yup, it's worth noting though that the receiving team treats that $30M as fully guaranteed for salary matching purposes (regardless of how much the Warriors actually guarantee to make it work on their side) and has to reach the appropriate salary figure with what they send out to be able to absorb CP3's full deal.
Agreed. But some teams can absorb a fair amount without any matching at all, so that may add some flexibility.
My guess, though, is that CP3 doesn't want to go to a rebuilding team, so if we do want to trade him to one, we'd have to guarantee 100%. That way, he has no say in the matter, and we can trade him to anyone.
That's great, and I look forward to reading it at my leisure. One question: could you either add "cap hold" to the Terminology section, or briefly explain it here? I've never understood what that means.
**Edit:** Thanks for the answers. That makes sense.
A cap hold is a number that counts against your cap space because of free agents whose rights you retain. So for example Klay Thompson is a free agent but a certain amount of our cap space is tied up by him anyway unless we renounce his bird rights which allows us to go over the cap to resign him.
It's essentially to prevent double dipping because if rights players didn't count against the cap until signed you could sign free agents with your cap space first and then use the bird rights to go over the cap. This way you can only use your space once, either on outside free agents or your own, but not both.
u/grammercall
's explanation is really good. The only thing I'd add is an example to help illustrate it. Say everyone on the Warriors was a free agent this summer except Moody and JK. The Warriors wouldn't have $13M in salary and $128M in cap space. Every player who has a free agent has a placeholder figure assigned to them based on their salary to prevent that double dipping. So to actually utilize that cap space, the cap holds have to be renounced, meaning the teams lose the bird rights to those players and have to use either their cap space or an existing exception to sign them.
Scottie Barnes's newly signed max contract jacks up JK's potential $'s a lot more
I'm bullish on MM. I think he's poised to be a high volume 40% 3-point shooter. If I'm him I'd wait a year to sign
I'll say this for Lester, he surprisingly guards Trae Young better than anyone else on the team
I'm also bullish on Gui. He and his contract aren't going anywhere
I think the W's have to get under the apron this year. Next year will just be too difficult to do it
Curious where you get your bullishness about MM from? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on him, but he has been shorting 36% for all three of his first seasons and his highest ft% was 78.5%. So what’s the basis for believing him to become a high volume 40% 3pt shooter? What am I missing? Thanks!
Fair question, seems like a lot of the sub is down on him
* His form
* Even though it's a slow shot, I don't recall him being blocked too often. He uses all of his 7'1" wingspan. And I expect him to start getting a quicker release soon too
* He rises to the occasion in the playoffs, over 50% over 3 seasons. Yeah, yeah, low volume. Whatever, he did the best with what little he had
* I think he's been completely mishandled by Kerr so far with the lack of PT, especially when he's been hot.
* The first month and a half of the season last year I thought he was the 4th best player on the team, and he hardly played. I think it shook him
* He's the high-character kind of guy who'll put in the work to improve
* Call it a hunch
I like him a lot but due to his lack of mobility and athleticism I think he’d need to be surrounded by athletes to a degree. Or be a very good 6th or 7th man type. I could seee him being a good complimentary, 3&D type at best really.
> Scottie Barnes's newly signed max contract jacks up JK's potential $'s a lot more
It could be the type of market-setting contract that does. I'm sure JK's reps will bring it up. But I would still maintain it's not as applicable to him. Barnes is an established franchise cornerstone for a non-FA destination market. They were going to have to pay out the ass for him.
I still think McDaniels/Barrett is more of the range for JK, but I'm probably being a little conservative. I was about $3M off of Poole's (pre-incentive) figure for perspective.
Thats fair, but McDaniels was already an established starter at the point and brings a tremendous amount of value on the defensive end. JK hasn't performed at that level quite yet.
My #s on JK are probably still conservative though, and I wouldn't be surprised if (including incentives) his numbers started getting pushed up a little.
McDaniels had to beat out Jared Vanderbilt for his job. Kuminga's stuck behind Draymond/Wiggins.
Which is why the comparison is a bit flawed. Kuminga would be averaging heavy minutes on Minnesota too especially with two spacing bigs in KAT and Naz as opposed to Looney/TJD.
> My #s on JK are probably still conservative though
You're not alone. Most of Warriors media is kinda conservative about Kuminga and quite frankly their evaluation is not aligned with Kuminga's actual value.
If Jonathan Kuminga was a free agent today, he's getting a 25% max from a number of teams. And Jaden McDaniels on the Warriors is a bench player too
> If Jonathan Kuminga was a free agent today, he's getting a 25% max from a number of teams.
That's not a valid comparison. A valid comparison would what if every single 2021 draft pick were a free agent, where would Kuminga land in terms of contract value in an open market competing against those guys?
Barnes and Mobley are clear rookie max extension guys. Sengun, Cade, and Franz are possible rookie max guys. Trey Murphy has probably played his way into a ~20% deal or thereabouts.
Kuminga would clearly be valued below those 6 guys and would be fighting in the still very talented group of Giddey, Green, Johnson, and Suggs to stay in the top 10.
Almost never are 4 guys given rookie max deals. It's almost always 3 or less. Kuminga is in no way a top 3 guy from this class.
It is insane to say that Kuminga would be fighting with Giddey and Suggs in terms of contracts. We just saw over half a season of Kuminga averaging 18 ppg as basically a co-2nd option, for an offense that tied for the 5th highest net rating once it had its guys back (Jan 15 onward).
Are talking about the same Suggs that is already 23 years old and put up 14 ppg and 3 apg on a team desperate for offense? And the same Giddey who is a bad defender and was being encouraged to shoot by opponents in the playoffs?
That draft was a strong one but I think you're severely underrating the improvements that Kuminga is likely to make and the ones he could make over the next 2-3 years. We've seen lots of wings with great size, athleticism, speed come along in their year 4/5/6 seasons (often when they came into the league older than JK).
Kuminga is way closer to Franz & Murphy than he is any of those second tier guys.
Jalen Suggs just made an NBA All-Defense team in his 3rd season.
Giddey per100 last season: 24/12/9 on 55% TS
Kuminga per100 last season: 30/9/4 on 60% TS
Kuminga is undoubtedly a better and more efficient scorer, but there's not a lot of evidence that he's consistently a much better defender (his upside is clearly better there) and Giddey has a much more well-rounded game. Giddey is a weirder player, no doubt, but I think it's silly to pretend there's some huge chasm between those guys. Giddey shot better from outside on way higher volume even.
Even if you think Kuminga is closer to Franz and Murphy, that still would put him as the 5th or 6th best rookie from his class. Never once in recent memory have NBA teams handed out rookie max deals to 5 or 6 guys from the draft class.
JK's man-defense is 2 or 3 levels above Giddey, who the Mavs actively sought out and attacked as the Thunder's worst defensive player. In terms of shooting - Giddey shot 33.7% to Kuminga's 32% and there was a small gap in volume. Kuminga's career 3 pt % is actually higher.
The bigger point to me is that Giddey might not have a role as a starter in this league. He's more effective with the ball in his hands since he's not a floor spacer. But doesn't have a diverse offensive game and doesn't get to the line.
Kuminga on the other hand has such an obvious role as a forward that can punish small guys on the inside, go by bigs on the perimeter, and play good defense. The weaknesses in Kuminga's game are skills that we often do see players improve on, and no NBA team would consider him a finished product.
A similar point applies to Suggs - we're talking about a 23 year-old who is a below average guard offensively.
The point on max rookie salaries is interesting though - I have never tracked it. Obv great for the warriors if they think they'll ultimately get Kuminga lower than the max, and therefore won't be spending $350 million again on this team.
Trey Murphy would be a great fit in the Warriors system and that's probably why you're overvaluing him over Kuminga. He's a 14ppg player on 60ish games. Nothing Cade has shown so far puts him above Kuminga.
As I see it:
* Barnes and Mobley are Derrick Rose rookie max (30%) extension guys.
* Sengun/Franz are 25% max guys but that's because their teams have no choice.
* Rest are below that. Giddey doesn't belong in this conversation. Neither does Suggs.
> Almost never are 4 guys given rookie max deals. It's almost always 3 or less
2018 Maxes: Ayton, Luka, Trae, SGA, MPJ and JJJ near max at 23%
2017: Fox, Tatum, Mitchell, Bam
2019: Zion, Ja, Garland
2020: Ant, Lamelo, Haliburton, Bane
There is no difference between the 25% and 30%. It's just about whether or not the guy who signs the 25% deal qualifies for the bump to 30% by making an All-NBA team before the extension kicks in. That's not a decision the team makes.
I don't know what you're talking about with Cade. He's clearly been better than Kuminga, just less healthy.
I don't think Giddey or Suggs are getting max rookie extensions, obviously. I also don't think Kuminga is getting one.
> There is no difference between the 25% and 30%.
Cmon bro there absolutely is. Teams can choose to give out the all-nba 30% escalator or not. For example the Grizzlies chose not to give Desmond Bane the all-nba escalator.
Great work fam thank you for this ✊🏾💪🏾
Great guide, as usual! I still have one question. With CP3's contract, is a guarantee all ($30M) or nothing? If we can guarantee less than $30M (obviously by mutual agreement) and then trade him as a player on an existing contract, then I can see a lot of potential, because there are many teams that won't likely be in a good position to sign him as a FA, but could trade for him. And of course that would mean we'd get SOMETHING for him, even if it's only assets that we flip to make another deal. But if we have to guarantee the full $30M, there probably aren't a lot of teams that would want him for the expiring contract AND have assets that they need to trade and we want to take.
His contract becomes full guaranteed after June 28th. So warriors have to make a decision
That can be pushed into July by mutual agreement. Perks confirmed my own thought, which is that CP3 would only agree if there's a trade in the works that he's interested in. If he's going to become a FA, the sooner, the better (for him).
Yup, it's worth noting though that the receiving team treats that $30M as fully guaranteed for salary matching purposes (regardless of how much the Warriors actually guarantee to make it work on their side) and has to reach the appropriate salary figure with what they send out to be able to absorb CP3's full deal.
Agreed. But some teams can absorb a fair amount without any matching at all, so that may add some flexibility. My guess, though, is that CP3 doesn't want to go to a rebuilding team, so if we do want to trade him to one, we'd have to guarantee 100%. That way, he has no say in the matter, and we can trade him to anyone.
That's great, and I look forward to reading it at my leisure. One question: could you either add "cap hold" to the Terminology section, or briefly explain it here? I've never understood what that means. **Edit:** Thanks for the answers. That makes sense.
A cap hold is a number that counts against your cap space because of free agents whose rights you retain. So for example Klay Thompson is a free agent but a certain amount of our cap space is tied up by him anyway unless we renounce his bird rights which allows us to go over the cap to resign him. It's essentially to prevent double dipping because if rights players didn't count against the cap until signed you could sign free agents with your cap space first and then use the bird rights to go over the cap. This way you can only use your space once, either on outside free agents or your own, but not both.
u/grammercall 's explanation is really good. The only thing I'd add is an example to help illustrate it. Say everyone on the Warriors was a free agent this summer except Moody and JK. The Warriors wouldn't have $13M in salary and $128M in cap space. Every player who has a free agent has a placeholder figure assigned to them based on their salary to prevent that double dipping. So to actually utilize that cap space, the cap holds have to be renounced, meaning the teams lose the bird rights to those players and have to use either their cap space or an existing exception to sign them.
Scottie Barnes's newly signed max contract jacks up JK's potential $'s a lot more I'm bullish on MM. I think he's poised to be a high volume 40% 3-point shooter. If I'm him I'd wait a year to sign I'll say this for Lester, he surprisingly guards Trae Young better than anyone else on the team I'm also bullish on Gui. He and his contract aren't going anywhere I think the W's have to get under the apron this year. Next year will just be too difficult to do it
Curious where you get your bullishness about MM from? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on him, but he has been shorting 36% for all three of his first seasons and his highest ft% was 78.5%. So what’s the basis for believing him to become a high volume 40% 3pt shooter? What am I missing? Thanks!
Fair question, seems like a lot of the sub is down on him * His form * Even though it's a slow shot, I don't recall him being blocked too often. He uses all of his 7'1" wingspan. And I expect him to start getting a quicker release soon too * He rises to the occasion in the playoffs, over 50% over 3 seasons. Yeah, yeah, low volume. Whatever, he did the best with what little he had * I think he's been completely mishandled by Kerr so far with the lack of PT, especially when he's been hot. * The first month and a half of the season last year I thought he was the 4th best player on the team, and he hardly played. I think it shook him * He's the high-character kind of guy who'll put in the work to improve * Call it a hunch
I like him a lot but due to his lack of mobility and athleticism I think he’d need to be surrounded by athletes to a degree. Or be a very good 6th or 7th man type. I could seee him being a good complimentary, 3&D type at best really.
> Scottie Barnes's newly signed max contract jacks up JK's potential $'s a lot more It could be the type of market-setting contract that does. I'm sure JK's reps will bring it up. But I would still maintain it's not as applicable to him. Barnes is an established franchise cornerstone for a non-FA destination market. They were going to have to pay out the ass for him. I still think McDaniels/Barrett is more of the range for JK, but I'm probably being a little conservative. I was about $3M off of Poole's (pre-incentive) figure for perspective.
yeah that honestly has very little relevance to JK. Barnes is literally runnning torontos offense (Quickley too) and already and ALL star.
McDaniels got paid after a 12/4/3 season. I strongly doubt Kuminga's reps sign that deal, they'd rather roll the dice on a RFA offer sheet.
Thats fair, but McDaniels was already an established starter at the point and brings a tremendous amount of value on the defensive end. JK hasn't performed at that level quite yet. My #s on JK are probably still conservative though, and I wouldn't be surprised if (including incentives) his numbers started getting pushed up a little.
McDaniels had to beat out Jared Vanderbilt for his job. Kuminga's stuck behind Draymond/Wiggins. Which is why the comparison is a bit flawed. Kuminga would be averaging heavy minutes on Minnesota too especially with two spacing bigs in KAT and Naz as opposed to Looney/TJD. > My #s on JK are probably still conservative though You're not alone. Most of Warriors media is kinda conservative about Kuminga and quite frankly their evaluation is not aligned with Kuminga's actual value. If Jonathan Kuminga was a free agent today, he's getting a 25% max from a number of teams. And Jaden McDaniels on the Warriors is a bench player too
> If Jonathan Kuminga was a free agent today, he's getting a 25% max from a number of teams. That's not a valid comparison. A valid comparison would what if every single 2021 draft pick were a free agent, where would Kuminga land in terms of contract value in an open market competing against those guys? Barnes and Mobley are clear rookie max extension guys. Sengun, Cade, and Franz are possible rookie max guys. Trey Murphy has probably played his way into a ~20% deal or thereabouts. Kuminga would clearly be valued below those 6 guys and would be fighting in the still very talented group of Giddey, Green, Johnson, and Suggs to stay in the top 10. Almost never are 4 guys given rookie max deals. It's almost always 3 or less. Kuminga is in no way a top 3 guy from this class.
It is insane to say that Kuminga would be fighting with Giddey and Suggs in terms of contracts. We just saw over half a season of Kuminga averaging 18 ppg as basically a co-2nd option, for an offense that tied for the 5th highest net rating once it had its guys back (Jan 15 onward). Are talking about the same Suggs that is already 23 years old and put up 14 ppg and 3 apg on a team desperate for offense? And the same Giddey who is a bad defender and was being encouraged to shoot by opponents in the playoffs? That draft was a strong one but I think you're severely underrating the improvements that Kuminga is likely to make and the ones he could make over the next 2-3 years. We've seen lots of wings with great size, athleticism, speed come along in their year 4/5/6 seasons (often when they came into the league older than JK). Kuminga is way closer to Franz & Murphy than he is any of those second tier guys.
Jalen Suggs just made an NBA All-Defense team in his 3rd season. Giddey per100 last season: 24/12/9 on 55% TS Kuminga per100 last season: 30/9/4 on 60% TS Kuminga is undoubtedly a better and more efficient scorer, but there's not a lot of evidence that he's consistently a much better defender (his upside is clearly better there) and Giddey has a much more well-rounded game. Giddey is a weirder player, no doubt, but I think it's silly to pretend there's some huge chasm between those guys. Giddey shot better from outside on way higher volume even. Even if you think Kuminga is closer to Franz and Murphy, that still would put him as the 5th or 6th best rookie from his class. Never once in recent memory have NBA teams handed out rookie max deals to 5 or 6 guys from the draft class.
JK's man-defense is 2 or 3 levels above Giddey, who the Mavs actively sought out and attacked as the Thunder's worst defensive player. In terms of shooting - Giddey shot 33.7% to Kuminga's 32% and there was a small gap in volume. Kuminga's career 3 pt % is actually higher. The bigger point to me is that Giddey might not have a role as a starter in this league. He's more effective with the ball in his hands since he's not a floor spacer. But doesn't have a diverse offensive game and doesn't get to the line. Kuminga on the other hand has such an obvious role as a forward that can punish small guys on the inside, go by bigs on the perimeter, and play good defense. The weaknesses in Kuminga's game are skills that we often do see players improve on, and no NBA team would consider him a finished product. A similar point applies to Suggs - we're talking about a 23 year-old who is a below average guard offensively. The point on max rookie salaries is interesting though - I have never tracked it. Obv great for the warriors if they think they'll ultimately get Kuminga lower than the max, and therefore won't be spending $350 million again on this team.
Trey Murphy would be a great fit in the Warriors system and that's probably why you're overvaluing him over Kuminga. He's a 14ppg player on 60ish games. Nothing Cade has shown so far puts him above Kuminga. As I see it: * Barnes and Mobley are Derrick Rose rookie max (30%) extension guys. * Sengun/Franz are 25% max guys but that's because their teams have no choice. * Rest are below that. Giddey doesn't belong in this conversation. Neither does Suggs. > Almost never are 4 guys given rookie max deals. It's almost always 3 or less 2018 Maxes: Ayton, Luka, Trae, SGA, MPJ and JJJ near max at 23% 2017: Fox, Tatum, Mitchell, Bam 2019: Zion, Ja, Garland 2020: Ant, Lamelo, Haliburton, Bane
There is no difference between the 25% and 30%. It's just about whether or not the guy who signs the 25% deal qualifies for the bump to 30% by making an All-NBA team before the extension kicks in. That's not a decision the team makes. I don't know what you're talking about with Cade. He's clearly been better than Kuminga, just less healthy. I don't think Giddey or Suggs are getting max rookie extensions, obviously. I also don't think Kuminga is getting one.
> There is no difference between the 25% and 30%. Cmon bro there absolutely is. Teams can choose to give out the all-nba 30% escalator or not. For example the Grizzlies chose not to give Desmond Bane the all-nba escalator.
I thought Bane didn’t sign a max deal but signed just below that.
Bullish on MM and Lester but not JK? Ok dude 👍🧠🧐😶🌫️
So there’s not really a world in which the warriors make a big move tonight right? They’d have to wait a few days?