Andrew Bogut Comments on Marreese Speights, Harrison Barnes' Contract Situations

The more successful the Golden State Warriors become, the more difficult it will be for them to hang on to key role players such as center Marreese Speights and small forward Harrison Barnes. Andrew Bogut knows retaining both Speights and Barnes won't come cheap for the reigning NBA champions.  

"Somebody's going to pay [Speights] a lot of money, and hopefully, it's us," said the Warriors center on Tuesday, per Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Golden State will have a difficult decision to make as to whether it commits to Speights or Festus Ezeli for the long term. The team probably won't have the resources to re-sign both.

Ezeli seemed like the stronger of the two options earlier in the season, but that isn't quite the case anymore after he had knee surgery in February. Speights, meanwhile, is only driving up his value by broadening his offensive game. He's shooting 14-of-29 from beyond the arc through the month of March. ESPN's Ethan Sherwood Strauss doesn't think Speights' shot is the prettiest, but it's effective all the same:

Barnes, meanwhile, has been one of the more interesting free-agents-to-be after The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski reported last September he turned down a four-year, $64 million offer from the Warriors. Despite Barnes' less than gaudy numbers (11.3 PPG, 4.7 RPG), Bogut believes he's bound to capitalize with the salary cap exploding this summer, per Simmons:

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Someone is probably going to give him the max. Let's be honest. Someone is going to give him close to the max. There's always a small-market team that would love someone like Harrison as their No. 1 or No. 2 option. I don't think it's going to having any bearing on his financial future. I think people know that everyone on this team is more valuable than their contract says - just on the basis of what they've given up.

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Much of whether the Warriors re-sign Barnes likely hinges on how real their chances of landing Kevin Durant are. If they're serious about adding Durant, then Barnes is as good as gone. If that's not an option, then they should have the necessary funds to keep Barnes around, especially considering Bogut and Andre Iguodala come off the books in 2017.