The Golden State Warriors have pretty much wrapped up their offseason, at least as far as player acquisition goes. Now, the question is, what do they do about their books when it comes to players already on the roster? The team can being contract extension negotiations with Stephen Curry starting on Saturday, but they’ve already begun contract talks with guard Brandin Podziemski, who is signed for next season but eligible for a rookie extension.
And it’s a tricky case. Podziemski has gotten more productive every year that he has been in the league, increasing his scoring from 9.2 points as a rookie to 11.7 points and to 13.8 points last year. But it is hard to say he has improved all that much in his time in the league.
Podziemski did show flashes down the stretch last year when he averaged 17.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 4.1 assists in 31.6 minutes after the All-Star break, with Curry mostly injured and Jimmy Butler out because of a torn ACL. It’s a small sample size, though, and they were big numbers on a bad team.
Brandin Podziemski Tough to Compare
Around the league, Podziemski is the kind of of player who is hard to project, contract-wise, because there are so many different ways he can be viewed. Executives don’t envy the Warriors trying to sort out a deal for him.
“He’s a good player, any team would take him, but what do you pay him?” one Western Conference executive said. “That’s a tricky situation. He can score a little, good rebounder, but he is not really a point guard and if he’s your shooting guard, he is just an average 3-point shooter (37.2% in his career). Not great defensively. But he plays every day, he has a good motor. So you want to keep him around, but if he wants Christian Braun money, it’s hard to go there.
Braun got five years and $125 million from the Nuggets, and though Podziemski can make the case that he is on par with Braun, the Braun contract was vastly inflated and the Warriors would not look to that as a guidepost.
Warriors Path to a Brandin Podziemski Extension
Another Eastern Conference executive brought up Shaedon Sharpe’s extension with the Blazers, which went for four years and $90 million, as a potential Warriors guide for Podziemski. That’s an average of $22.5 million per year, which is probably higher than the Warriors want to go.
The East GM said: “For a player like him, I think you start at the midlevel, which will be $16 (million), and then you say, OK, he is young, he is getting better, how much is that worth? How coachable is he, how much is that worth? How much is the institutional knowledge worth, what we have sunk into him from a development standpoint? And so you wind up at wherever that puts you.”
It was put to the GM that might come out to $18-19 million, and he agreed.
Warriors Eyeing Massive Cap Space in 2027
There is another issue for the Warriors, though, and it goes beyond the extensions for Podziemski and Curry–and yet ties in closely with them. Golden State has the opportunity, with multiple expiring contracts on the books, to carve out a whopping $140 million or so in cap space next summer, but only if they keep the books clean beyond what’s already been signed.
Waiting on an extension for Curry is a possibility, if cap space is the goal. It will be trickier for Podziemski, who would be stuck in restricted free agency if he does not get an extension in the coming weeks. But either way, his is a difficult case.
Warriors Face ‘Tricky Situation’ on Brandin Podziemski