What the fucking fuck, man?
In a podcast earlier this week with Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps, Tim Kawakami of The Athletic took to the mic to talk about Jerry West’s move from the Golden State Warriors to the Los Angeles Clippers, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr and of Warriors owner Joe Lacob’s bloodlust for other petty NBA teams who dare to challenge Golden State’s supremacy.
Kawakami said that Lacob and the Warriors will definitely pursue Paul George. At 16:30 on the podcast: “I have teased this for more than a year. We think that they’re going to go after Paul George, somehow. I think Joe Lacob is going to find a way to get Paul George. I don’t know how that would happen, but I didn’t know how it was going to happen when three years ago they said they were going to go after Durant…They’re going to try everything.”
George is arguably a top 10 talent in the league right now, having boasting career bests in points per game (27.7 ppg) and field goal percentage (46.1%) last year. George has two years remaining on his contract with a player option next year as it isn’t really any secret that the Oklahoma City Thunder have George on that 1-year lease before he bolts for a California team.
I can go on about how disastrous this move would be for the NBA in terms of parity and competition, but here’s some math to prove just how ludicrous this signing would be in terms of dollars and cents:
George is set to make $19.5 mil this year and, again, will most likely opt out of his final year. George is too talented to NOT get a max deal, period. A player of his caliber, paired with his years in the league (9 years, by 2018), George would qualify for a 30% max deal, meaning he could sign a deal worth 30% of the league salary cap. The league salary cap is determined on a year-by-year basis with NBA analysts predicting it to range somewhere in the $103 mil range, placing George’s potential max contract at $30.9 mil/year.
If hypothetically, Golden State DID sign George to the max, and they sign role players to similar deals as their 2018 cap hold, then their estimated active roster cap hit would topple upwards of $178.39 mil! That’s $55 mil OVER the luxury tax cap of $123 mil, meaning Golden State would have to fork over $218.5 mil in luxury tax penalties.
While Cleveland, the only team remaining who can legitimately challenge Golden State, is having the off-season from hell, the Warriors have locked up all of their key cogs of their record-setting 2016-2017 campaign in signing deals with Stephen Curry (5 years, $201.2 mil), Kevin Durant (2 years, $51.2 mil), Zaza Pachulia (1 year, $3.48 mil), Andre Iguodala (3 year, $48 mil), and Shaun Livingston (3 years, $23.69 mil) with Draymond Green and Klay Thompson locked up for the next few years.
Why on Earth Lacob feels the need to go after George is beyond me when he already has a team whose core has won two championships in three seasons, was literally one dagger three away from a third championship, set the record for wins in a regular season two years ago, has 4 of the top 30 players in the NBA, has the reigning Defensive POTY, and has TWO former MVPs.
Jesus, let’s all pray that Houston, San Antonio, or Cleveland dunks the Warriors into oblivion next year.
