Warriors Rumors: Klay Thompson, GSW Haven't Exchanged Contract Extension Offers
The Golden State Warriors currently have Stephen Curry under contract through the 2025-26 season and both Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins tied up through the 2026-27 campaign.
Sharpshooter Klay Thompson is only locked up for one more season, however, the upcoming 2023-24 campaign. And there may not be a rush to finalize an extension.
According to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, "No official offers or counteroffers have been made from either side, according to league sources. No exact salary numbers have been floated. There isn't a rush from either side, and there isn't a deadline. It could theoretically be done in-season, though I'd expect serious discussions (and perhaps an agreement) to come before that."
That report follows ESPN's Romana Shelburne telling Zach Lowe on his podcast earlier in September that the two sides have "started talking" and "exchanged proposals" but that there was "no hurry to these discussions."
Thompson, 33, is a Warriors legend, playing a key role in all four of the team's championships during the Splash Brothers era. He has shot an impressive 41.6 percent from three for his career (the 18th-best mark in NBA history) on 7.4 attempts per game, and it's arguable that only Stephen Curry has been a better shooter during their respective careers.
His 301 three-pointers last season led the NBA, and the 2,213 made threes for his career rank 11th all-time.
But there is also the issue of Thompson's age and durability to consider. He missed the entire 2019-20 season with a torn ACL, the entire 2020-21 season with a ruptured Achilles and only played in 32 games during the 2021-22 season and 69 games last year.
That he still led the NBA in made threes despite missing 13 games last season is borderline astonishing (Buddy Hield, who finished second with 288 made threes, played 11 more games than Thompson).
There's little doubt that Thompson's shooting hasn't declined, but it's fair to question which other aspects of his game might take a hit as he gets older. His defensive impact has already started to wane, for instance.
There's also the cap ramifications to consider.
Because Chris Paul's $30 million salary for the 2024-25 season is completely non-guaranteed, the Warriors afforded themselves some very nice wiggle room to extend Thompson without dipping into the second tax apron.
The penalties for going into the second apron include losing the $5 million taxpayer midlevel exception, losing the ability to sign buyout players during the season, losing access to trade exceptions or including cash in trades and the inability to include future first-round picks in trades, among others.
Prohibitive penalties, in other words. So depending on how much the cap rises (and the assumption that the Warriors don't want to hit that second tax apron and would fill out the rest of their roster with players on minimum deals), Slater and The Athletic's Danny Leroux estimated that the Dubs could pay Thompson somewhere between $42 million and $51.9 million).
Whether they'd want to pay him that much and lose all financial flexibility to improve the roster is another matter entirely. And it's possible that Thompson may not seek the full amount he could garner in an extension in an effort to both finish his career in the Bay Area and allow the Warriors some financial flexibility to improve the roster and seek more titles.
Time will tell. For now, it doesn't appear either side is in a rush.
