OK, I’m ready to hire Andre Iguodala as my new agent.

He might not exactly be too interested in the piddling stuff, though, because he just pulled off his negotiating masterpiece — at age 33, leveraging a very sharp Warriors front office into increasing their offer from about $12M a year for two fully guaranteed years (as reported by BANG’s Marcus Thompson II) to $15M per with the guaranteed third year and finally to three years, fully-guaranteed $48M.

All in about a day, from about $30M guaranteed to $48M, done deal, without any wholly definable other option out there other than Iguodala’s own strength of will on this one.

Also with everybody knowing that Iguodala wanted to stay with the Warriors and that the best bet, whether you were doing the betting in January, April, mid-June or just last night… was that he’d return to the Warriors for a few more years.

But Iguodala was confident enough to squeeze Joe Lacob, Peter Guber and Bob Myers on this, to keep squeezing, and ultimately Warriors management paid an Andre Premium to keep the chemistry of the locker room together as much as the chemistry and talent on the court.

Because I guarantee you Stephen Curry (who previously agreed to his long-anticipated five-year, $201M super-max extension), Kevin Durant (set to re-up for a one-plus-one deal that will lead to his own four-year super-max deal next July) and Draymond Green were paying very close attention to this one.

The Warriors players know exactly how profitable this team has become in recent years, and they know those numbers will climb higher and higher when Chase Center opens, which is scheduled for November 2019.

So Iguodala was the raw test case, pretty much at the apex of this franchise’s financial and championship ascent, for ownership passing some of the excess profit to a key player and leader determined not to take any less than possible.

The Lacob Era Warriors really haven’t had a negotiation like this — an important but aging player (at a position where youth always trumps age), key to the locker-room and on-court chemistry but clearly not worth the maximum and yet free to test the open market.

The Warriors’ previous other big deals have been no-brainer max-deals (like Durant last summer and into the future, Curry’s deal this time around) or young players in negotiations while they were still under Warriors control (Klay Thompson’s extension, Draymond Green’s restricted free-agency, or even Curry’s extension four years ago).

Iguodala was different. He’s a proud, smart man, with lots of negotiating experience, respect around the league, and — they all knew — the wherewithal to ditch the Warriors if he felt disrespected at any point… and what’s the ideal price-point for all that?

That had to be worked out. That’s why it took all the negotiating.

Iguodala probably wasn’t going to walk from this incredible situation just out of spite… but you didn’t really know for sure. He might. What if he did?

All Iguodala needed was a few theoretical options, and I am presuming that Sacramento’s massive amount of cap space and hunger to mess with the Warriors gave Iguodala and his agent the biggest leverage point, and then he could push Lacob and Myers for every dollar.



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And… I’ll just say that Lacob has always said he’d pay what it takes for championships, and this is what it took last night.

Plus Curry’s $40M per year.

Plus Durant’s steps towards his own $40M per year deal.

Plus the $3.5M Lacob spent to buy the pick that netted Jordan Bell in the draft.

Plus re-upping David West.

Plus the $8M per for two years plus the $2M partial guarantee for a third year for Shaun Livingston.

As Nate Duncan pointed out last night, maybe the real Lacob/Guber extravagance was paying Shaun Livingston $8M, $8M and a guaranteed $2M in 2019-2020 when they knew the Iguodala price was going up and up.

The Warriors didn’t quite have a replacement for Iguodala, but they had Patrick McCaw just about ready to get major minutes in some part of the Livingston role, and still guaranteed Livingston $18M.

And if you add up the extra money the Warriors spent on Iguodala and Livingston — over my estimations and maybe their own initial hopes — they probably guaranteed a cumulative extra $15-18M to those two very respected veterans than was planned…. and when you factor in luxury-tax payments, this is going to be quite an expensive payroll.

But Lacob and Guber have accepted that. They had to because, especially with Iguodala, the Warriors were basically bidding against themselves, which I’m sure they knew, but Iguodala is the right guy to do it for.

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I am presuming this was Iguodala using the Kings as a leverage play — something like, if you don’t bump your offer higher, I’ll take the Kings’ richer offer and you get nothing, or you have to sign-and-trade me to Houston or San Antonio to get anything.

–On a side note, I think Kings owner Vivek Ranadive’s bidding for Iguodala cost Joe Lacob several million dollars, and that’s a win for Vivek (a former Warriors minority owner who was not exactly beloved by the other Warriors owners and who did not love the other Warriors owners).

The Warriors knew it might’ve been a bluff (hey, Iguodala didn’t take a richer offer from the Kings four years ago and walked right to the Warriors in a sign-and-trade deal), but didn’t want to risk that for a player as important right now as Iguodala.

Iguodala might not be as important in a year or two. Those knees aren’t getting any younger. There can be a steep drop-off for 33-year-old wing players in this league.

But right now, with LeBron James as the major force for the Warriors to deal with… and with the West loading up on dangerous wings (the idea of having to defend Paul George as a new OKC player might’ve been worth a $5M bump to Iguodala just by itself)… and with Iguodala such an important influence in that locker room…

He was worth the Warriors taking a little bit of an “L” on this one, and it’s not really an “L” because they still have Iguodala.

* Nobody has negotiated Lacob and Myers harder and better than Iguodala did this time. They’ve got to respect that (probably).

The only other time I can remember Lacob and Myers getting squeezed like this was when they went after DeAndre Jordan as a RFA in 2011, discarded every player they could to create the room (including amnestying Charlie Bell and releasing Jeremy Lin), then Jordan ended up being very happy when the Clippers retained him by matching the offer.

And that time the squeezing was done by Myers’ old boss Arn Tellem (then Jordan’s agent) and Myers was still the assistant GM.

* We all know that the Warriors wanted to avoid the third-year full guarantee to Iguodala for the 2019-2020 season because Klay Thompson’s deal is up in July 2019 and the Warriors will be facing some immense financial challenges at this point.

If Klay gets a monster deal at that point, the Warriors could be looking at a payroll + luxury-tax total that pushes near or past $300M, and even Lacob and Guber would have to gulp at that number.

But here’s why they can afford to take a larger view of this, at least for now…

–The Warriors have a $2.6B franchise value, according to the latest Forbes estimation, and that total is up from the $450M price Lacob and Guber paid in 2010.

–Forbes estimates an annual $74.5M profit, which is only going up due to the playoff-ticket bonanzas, and probably will hit $90M this year.

–Chase Center is scheduled to open in San Francisco on November 2019 and I don’t think it’s reckless to predict $120M annual profits once the new arena is taking in the big bucks. Or else why build a new arena in the first place?

–The Warriors’ local TV deal with NBC Sports Bay Area, which currently brings in about $30M per and can be re-set in a few years.

If you know their local ratings and what the top NBA teams collect annually… you can see that this number is going to go MUCH MUCH higher when the Warriors get a new deal, probably near or above $100M per.

So Lacob and Guber have tons of money. And they’ve made a commitment to…

1) Go deep into the luxury tax this coming season for the second time in franchise history (the first time was two years ago);

2) Set up the possibility for massive tax implications into the near future, when repeater rules come into play;

They’re paying what it takes to keep this run going for as long as they can.



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* By the way, the Iguodala deal has no effect on Durant’s upcoming deals.

He will sign for a 20% raise from last season’s salary (up to about $31.8M) on a one-year opt-out, then next July will be eligible (and will get) a four-year super-max extension.

* The Warriors don’t do anything blind. They don’t ever get locked into things year in advance, and yes, the prospect of a $300M overall payroll + tax in 2019-2020 isn’t something they want as a fixed expense.

So what flexibility do Myers and Lacob have as they look at the potential 2019 payroll and tax explosion?

It’s two years from now, a lot can happen between then and now, but I think you have to realize how aggressive GSWs have been in adding and shedding in recent years.

They blew out Andrew Bogut, Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli in a blink when they needed to make room for Durant.

They will have the maneuverability to do it again in 2019, or 2020, if they think it’s necessary.

Here are some options that would decrease the financial liability at that point and I’m sure went into their thinking now:

–They could use the “stretch provision” on Igoudala’s final season–2019-2020–to reduce the $16M (or so) hit on their luxury-tax number and stretch it to $5.3M in each of the next three seasons.

In the luxury-tax repeater climate, that could be a $30M savings. And Iguodala would still get every penny, which I’m sure Iguodala knows going into this.

–They could trade Iguodala in July 2019–he’d be an expiring contract then–and, if they add in a draft pick or two, could get back little or no money in return.

This is how they cleared the decks for Durant last summer, and I would imagine the Warriors know they could do a version of this again in two years.

–They could decide not to re-sign Klay Thompson in July 2019, or, if he’s agreeable, sign him to far less than $30M a year.

–They could trade Klay before that.



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I’m not saying the Warriors are planning to do ANYTHING with Klay other than re-sign him for what it’ll take in July 2019, but that’s two years from now and you don’t know what his value will be at at age 29 and you don’t know what kind of season the Warriors will have going into that.

–They could take the big financial hit in 2019 and then decide a year later about Draymond Green, who will be a free agent in July 2020, which presents even larger tax possibilities.

Same as with Klay, the Warriors could try to sign Draymond for less than massiveness — Draymond will be 30 in the summer of 2020 — or they could trade him or they could just swallow a potential tax bill that would dwarf all others ever conceived.

The Warriors have options. None of them will be cheap paths to walk, but they’ve collected a vast array of talent and there is a value and obligation to that.

Warriors ownership knows that the best plan is to try to keep as much of it together for as long as it is worth it, and if you have to start pruning it off, you keep yourself flexible enough to do that, too, and for now, they don’t have to consider any of that while trying to win as many titles as possible.