LAS VEGAS — This summer, Stephen Curry signed through the 2022 season, Kevin Durant linked back with a loud gesture that hinted at his long-term intentions and Andre Iguodala recommitted for three more years. Klay Thompson’s contract is not up until 2019, Draymond Green’s until 2020.

The Warriors’ five most important pieces are settled, which is settling for an organization. But another under-the-radar, potentially tricky financial decision awaits next summer: Patrick McCaw, who is perhaps the team’s sixth-most important piece from a team-building standpoint, will be a restricted free agent.

It’s a situation that has crept up on the Warriors quickly. McCaw was the 38th overall pick in the draft just 13 months ago. Immediately, he morphed into the exact thing a team with expensive superstar talent needs: Cheap, useful labor off the bench.

McCaw only made $543,471 last year — or just about what Curry will make per game next season. McCaw’s salary will jump to $1.3 million in Year 2, but that remains an extreme bargain for a versatile wing the coaching staff increasingly believes is capable of 20-plus productive minutes per night.

“I think the biggest jump you ever make in your career is between Year 1 and 2,” coach Steve Kerr said. “Year 1 you realize you can play in this league. Now he’s realizing he can be really good in this league.” Related Articles Giannis Antetokounmpo wins second MVP award; Is an NBA title with Warriors next?

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And that’s where the benefits of his second-round status shift from the Warriors to McCaw. First-round rookie contracts contain team options for a third and fourth year. McCaw’s doesn’t. He can hit restricted free agency two years before the first 30 players selected in his same draft.

“To be so young and know that I have a chance to be coming into a nice amount of money, it’s crazy to me,” McCaw said.

Fourteen years ago, a far different Warriors front office regime was in a somewhat similar situation. They drafted Gilbert Arenas with the first pick of the second round in 2001. By his second season, Arenas averaged 18.3 points per game.

The Wizards gave him a six-year, $60 million contract that offseason. The Warriors, already over the salary cap, had no ability to match the offer because they couldn’t equal the first year’s salary. The second-round superstar they found and nourished had bolted by Year 3, off to spend his prime seasons elsewhere.

So starting with the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NBA added a provision — named the Arenas Rule — that allows incumbent teams an ability to match all offers made to their second-round now restricted free agents. Want Warriors news in your inbox? Sign up for the free DubsDaily newsletter.

An opposing suitor could conceivably sign McCaw to, let’s say, a four-year, $55 million offer sheet next offseason. But the first year of the deal can’t be more than the mid-level exception — which will be around $9 million — and the second year can’t be more than a small raise of about five percent, before jumping to huge numbers in Years 3 and 4.

Using their exception or their Early Bird rights — allowing them to sign McCaw for 105 percent of the league average salary — the Warriors will have an ability to match any contract McCaw receives next summer.

So then the question becomes what does McCaw actually get and are the Warriors willing to shell out that much guaranteed money to one of their non-superstars just as their luxury tax numbers skyrocket.

The market for McCaw, you would expect, will be fierce. Plenty will depend on how he plays this upcoming season — “It’s huge for me,” he said — but McCaw fits the trend of today’s NBA. He’s a long, rangy, versatile two-way wing with great defensive technique, the ability to hit 3s, a splash of playmaking and an NBA upbringing in a championship environment.

“So patient out on the floor,” assistant coach Mike Brown said. “His pace is unbelievable for a young kid. Most times when you see young guys come into the league, their pace is so frantic, up and down, running all over the place, jacking shots. But from Day 1, Patrick’s pace has been fantastic … very uncanny.”

There won’t be nearly as much available money next offseason as there was last offseason, when Tyler Johnson, a more unproven second-round wing, got a four-year, $50 million offer sheet from the Nets ($5.6 and $5.8 million in the first two years, $18.8 and $19.6 million in the final two).

But it only takes one team to spike McCaw’s value. Maybe it is the Nets, who continue to toss mega offer sheets at younger options who fit their rebuilding timeline, or the Hawks, who have a general manager — former Warriors front office scouting guru Travis Schlenk — who knows McCaw so well.

“I really don’t know what to expect. It’s crazy to even say that I’ll be a restricted free agent,” McCaw said. “I know what that is. I know what that means. Now it’s about handling that situation at 22 years old, talking to different teams, meeting with different teams, things like that, trying to figure out the best situation for me to do. Because at the end of the day, it’s all a business. I built great relationships in my first year with a lot of GMs and the organization, with Golden State.”

That relationship with the Warriors could prove important. Restricted free agents in search of a way out often concoct offer sheets with suitors that include poison pills to scare away their current teams. Maybe it’s a trade kicker or a deal that stings the incumbent in an important year — like, say, in the 2020 offseason when Draymond Green’s contract is up.

But if McCaw and the Warriors are intent on continuing their partnership, they could better sculpt a deal that helps both sides.

“Who knows where I’ll be,” McCaw said. “Hopefully I’m still with Golden State. …To be a part of this team, this organization the first two years, to learn — because every organization is not like Golden State. To have guys, superstar level talented players taking pay cuts to keep something together means a lot to me being young, having a group of guys who want to be together no matter the cost. It’s huge. It’s unreal I’m in this situation right now.”

Weeks before his own free agency nearly took him elsewhere, Andre Iguodala used his championship parade speech to shed some light on his relationship with McCaw, a guy he mentored last season.

“It can be hard for a guy like me, who basically sees my replacement,” Iguodala said. “You see your replacement and you want to hold on and get your extra years and your extra money. But I had some great veterans, Aaron McKie and Kevin Ollie, who brought me up the right way. So it’s only right I give back. Patrick McCaw is next.”

Then Iguodala — who pried his extra years (three) and money ($48 million) from the Warriors — paused for a second, realizing that McCaw may not just be “next” up on the depth chart, but is next up at the negotiating table.

“He’s a second-rounder, so it’s tough,” Iguodala said. “Somebody’s going to try to steal him next year.”

If the Warriors are willing to pay — and so far, they certainly have been — then no one can steal him away. But teams will likely try.