NBA Rumors: Draymond Green reportedly wants a max extension from the Golden State Warriors.
The Golden State Warriors have completed their full circle journey back to the top of the mountain in the NBA. After winning championships with Kevin Durant, they battled injuries and key player losses and were one of the worst teams in the league for a couple of seasons. They quickly bounced back at won the NBA championship this past season.
But if the Warriors are going to keep this retooled championship team together, it’s likely going to prove to be very costly. And one of the first things that Golden State needs to figure out is who deserves a new payday.
Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Jordan Poole are all essentially on expiring contracts this season. They’re all due for extensions as well. However, extending all three of them would land the Warriors in cap hell.
Quite frankly, they may not be able to do it. Especially if all will be seeking max or close to max extensions. And while we don’t know what the market for each of them would be hypothetically if they were to enter free agency after this season, we do know that one, in particular, is going to seed a max extension from the Warriors – Draymond.
According to a recent report, Draymond “wants and believes” he deserves a max extension from Golden State. Paying Draymond will end up being a difficult road to cross for Golden State. For a myriad of reasons.
On the surface, yes, Draymond does in theory deserve a max contract extension. However, I don’t particularly believe that he’s going to perform as a max player over the next 3-5 years of his career. And ultimately, that’s what this decision should come down to.
Looking back, Draymond was nearly benched in the NBA Finals. In fact, you can make an argument that he should’ve been benched in the Finals. You can say that the Warriors won the championship in spite of Draymond.
The big question is whether that was due to injury or rust, or if that was in fact the beginning of a decline for Draymond.
And that’s where NBA teams generally fall into trouble – when they pay players max money retroactively. Golden State has coined the phrase “light years ahead.” Quite frankly, paying Draymond max money might be the cost of winning championships.
But, make no mistake, paying him max money at this stage of his career (when there’s clearly a decline) would be the furthest move from being “light years ahead.” We shall see how this all plays out.