Salary Cap Situations
Money can either make or break an NBA dynasty, depending on the players’ attitudes towards winning. Some players prioritize securing the biggest contract they can possibly get over winning a championship, and that either breaks up cores or handicaps teams’ ability to add help for their max player(s).
In the Golden State Warriors’ case, they got lucky and had guys overachieve on their contracts. It also didn’t hurt that several of their players opted to get paid less than what they could’ve maxed out at. Things just broke right for them… Ridiculously right. Take a look at how much luck they had financially in building a dynasty:
Andre Iguodala could have sought out a max contract in the summer of 2013, but instead chose long-term stability in the deal that brought him to Oakland. He signed for four years and $48 million, which at the time was what a typical starting player would earn. Remember, back then Iggy was coming off the heels of an impressive campaign where he was the catalyst of a surprisingly good Denver Nuggets team that won 57 games. Iggy was worth more than a typical starter.
Stephen Curry signed a cheap four-year/$44 million deal after his rookie contract because of concerns for him to stay healthy. It was during this cheap contract that he became a superstar and revolutionized the way teams shoot and defend the three-point shot.
Klay Thompson signed a four-year/$70 million extension early in his fourth season. Although that was technically a max deal, imagine how big of a contract he could’ve earned had he entered restricted free agency coming off a career year and championship run. The Warriors made the right decision to keep Klay rather than trade him for Kevin Love, and locking him up early in the season rather than being forced to match a humongous offer sheet.
Draymond Green was on a cheap rookie deal as a second round draft pick, and had a breakout year when he switched coaches from Mark Jackson to Steve Kerr. He cashed in on his big pay day in the summer of 2015, choosing a near-max contract to stay in Oakland rather than getting a huge offer sheet from other teams in restricted free agency.
This already sounds like a ton of good deals, and at this point the Warriors had won their first championship in 40 years. But it only got better for them.
The NBA entered into a new TV deal that kicked in for the 2016-17 season, causing the salary cap to explode higher than the usual modest increase. All of a sudden those max contracts signed in years past were the equivalent of what role players were earning, and consequently the Warriors had a few max guys on bargain contracts, with enough cap space to add one more big piece. And a big piece did they ever add.
After nearly beating the Warriors in the semi-finals of the playoffs, Kevin Durant decided to join forces in the Bay, creating the most lopsided power shift in the modern NBA. Nobody could catch the Warriors in the West, and were it not for Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant being injured in the NBA Finals this past June, the Warriors probably would have become the sixth team in NBA history to win three consecutive championships.
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, the Brooklyn Nets went all-in on trying to buy an NBA title. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokorhov was one of the NBA’s newer and more zealous owners at the time, and wanted to start the Brooklyn era with a bang. In 2010, he promised a championship within five years, and added NBA stars to his team starting with Deron Williams.
After two all-star seasons, the Nets locked up Williams on a max contract and traded for Joe Johnson, who was on a hefty max contract himself. The next summer, the Nets infamously traded three unprotected picks and a few other players for basically a declining Kevin Garnett (who was making over $10 mil a year at age 36) and Paul Pierce (making around $16 million a year at age 36).
Basically what was supposed to turn out as a veteran-laden contender turned into a dumpster fire. All four of these big acquisitions declined from their glory days, several head coaches were fired, and the Nets never made it past the second round of the playoffs, even in the measly Eastern Conference.
To make matters worse, when it was time to blow up the roster, they didn’t have a draft pick to look forward to when they were playing like a lottery team. The Nets became the team with no hope.
As for the Utah Jazz, here is the current salary cap situation: