For the third straight season, the Golden State Warriors enter the postseason as the favorite to win the NBA title. But as they learned last season, anything can happen. Anything also seems to happen in free agency as well. Last year, the Warriors improbably landed top free agent Kevin Durant after almost losing to Durant in the Western Conference Finals, when the Oklahoma City Thunder held a 3-1 series lead at one point.
This offseason figures to be unexpected once again for the Golden State, but that is part of life for the team that has won 207 regular season games in the last three seasons, which broke the previous league record for a three-season stretch. This offseason the Warriors will see Stephen Curry, Andre Iguodala, and Shaun Livingston all become free agents, and the aforementioned Durant will have the opportunity to opt out of the two-year contract he signed last year on July 4, that included an early termination option after his first season with the Warriors.
Even with the NBA salary cap that restricts unlimited spending set to increase greatly, thanks to the league’s new lucrative television contract, keeping this much high-priced talent would be a challenge. While keeping the talent is a challenge, the first hurdle to clear is to ensure that the talent enjoys playing with their given team and that definitely appears to be the case in Golden State.
While nothing is binding, Durant recently stated he has no plans to leave Golden State after just one season and it was reported Monday night that Iguodala also plans to stay in Golden State after his contract ends after this season. RealGM reported late Monday that their NBA sources see this as a matter of details as Iguodala has stated his intentions to stay with the team next year.
An NBA source said the only real open question for Iguodala to re-sign is the number of seasons on the deal with the Warriors.
Iguodala also went on the San Jose Mercury News’ Tim Kawakami’s podcast Monday and stated a strong desire to stay with the team:
“The people that need to know, they know the situation, and there’s not going to be any issue,” Iguodala said. “Bob (Warriors General Manager Bob Myers) and I have conversations all the time about different scenarios and different things, not just about me, but about the rest of the team. So I don’t see it being a big problem at all. And here right now will probably be the best place.”
Iguodala is in the final year of the four-year, $48 million contract that he signed after a three-team sign-and-trade deal between the Warriors, Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz. Iguodala has had a very successful 11-year NBA career to this point that has seen him play for the Philadelphia 76ers, Nuggets and the Warriors. He has earned more than $118.6 million in his career. Iguodala was the No. 9 overall pick by the 76ers in the 2004 NBA Draft when he left the University of Arizona after his sophomore year.
The key component to Iguodala's career continuing in Golden State may depend on Durant, as he can ask for a significant raise from the $26.5 million he is earning this season as a part of his max contract. Kawakami went into detail about this Warriors financial situation going into the offseason for the Mercury News here: