The NBA Champions have no plans of disappearing from center stage anytime soon, and the Golden State Warriors made the most important move they had awaiting for them this offseason, re-signing Draymond Green.
The 25-year old wanted to get paid more than anything, and he did. The Warriors gave him a five-year, $82 million deal, without a player option in the fourth season like a lot of the five-year deals signed over the last couple of days included.
Green flirted with the idea of leaving, especially to the Detroit Pistons, but it might have been a ploy to make the Warriors move a little bit faster. He spoke only to them during the short time since free agency began, and it very quickly was made clear they weren’t planning on letting him walk, resulting in the kind of contract he was expecting to get.
With Green re-signed, the Warriors are missing only Leandro Barbosa from the core they ran to the championship last season. It doesn’t seem at the moment like Barbosa will be re-signed, but it’s still early, especially for players of his caliber, who often have to wait a little bit before teams pay full attention to them.
One thing that might still change for the Warriors is David Lee. His $15 million contract, the last season on his deal, is going to be difficult to move, but as the last couple of days have shown us, $15 million a season suddenly doesn’t sound like too much for teams around the league.
The Warriors at the moment have close to $98 million committed to the salary cap, which means a lot of luxury tax. While it’s not going too bad a year from now, they might be thinking about moving Lee not just for the money reason, but also to possibly find a player (or two) that fit better into Steve Kerr’s system.