An easy answer exists. Joe Lacob won’t like it, but it’s there for the Warriors. A way for all parties to be happy, to feel appreciated, to be free to focus exclusively on defending their championship.

That solution: Pay everybody. Draymond Green. Andrew Wiggins. Jordan Poole. Klay Thompson. Reward all of them with hefty contract extensions, locking in the Warriors core for several extra seasons. No CBA rule prevents it.

But that just isn’t viable for the franchise, sources indicate. Extending all those players would lock in astronomical luxury-tax penalties — sling-shotting their total bill (salary plus tax) well above the record $362 million they paid this past season. They’d be entering a stratosphere that Lacob, transparently, has said he’s unwilling to touch.

Let’s do an exercise and get ambitious with it, ensuring everyone feels well-compensated for 2023-24. Give Wiggins an extension that starts around the $33 million he’s currently making. Give Poole an extension that starts around the $27 million range. Bump Green, who has a player option, into his decline-and-extend max of a $30.9 million starting salary. Thompson is already making $43.2 million that season.

That zooms the total payroll for the 2023-24 season toward $222 million. The projected tax line is $161 million. The Warriors are willing to pay their players. But their enemy is the collective bargaining agreement and its luxury tax rules. The Warriors are living in the more punitive repeater tax. Crunch the numbers and you’re talking about a total bill (salary plus tax) of around $564 million.

“Those numbers are not even remotely possible,” Lacob told our Tim Kawakami last month, even indicating that $400 million was too steep.

But slice one of those theoretical contract extensions completely away, even the smallest — Poole’s $27 million, for the sake of this exercise — and the total 2023-24 bill (salary plus tax) nosedives more than $200 million back to around $338 million, a range Lacob appears more comfortable paying.

Thus, a storm is brewing. They are all under contract for the 2022-23 season. But not paying everyone means the Warriors will have to decide who to prioritize and who to leave vulnerable. As soon as next offseason, one or two of the beloved championship core could be gone. Even before potential departures, the reactions to how the Warriors’ front office navigates this could reverberate into this season, potentially impacting their chances to defend the crown.

The ramifications feel almost inevitable. Pay the legends, risk losing the youth. Pay the youth, risk alienating the legends. Pay nobody and create a tension-filled locker room for Steve Kerr to steer.

The drama could start as soon as next week. Let’s dig into the specific situations.

Draymond Green


(Kyle Terada / USA Today)
Green, according to sources, wants and believes he deserves a maximum contract extension from the Warriors. Aug. 3 is when he is eligible to sign a four-year deal. That is his desired length.

After playing like the Defensive Player of the Year frontrunner before injury shortened his regular season, after helping lead the Warriors to a fourth championship in eight seasons, even after struggling at times in in the postseason and his offense being an issue, Green is convinced the core of the Warriors’ dynasty is worth every possible penny, and that definitely includes him.

Green is set to make $25.8 million this coming season. He is due $27.5 million for 2023-24, but it’s a player option. He can decline it and become a free agent next summer. So the maximum extension Green could sign starting next week involves him opting out of the final year of his current deal and signing a four-year extension worth $138.4 million. His starting number for a max extension is only $3.4 million higher than his option year — not nothing but certainly not a ridiculous raise or uncontrollable tax spike.

Including this coming season, a max extension would lock in Green for $164.2 million over the next five seasons. He’d turn 37 years old in the final season.

All indications, though, are that the Warriors have no plans to offer Green a maximum extension, and there isn’t any current traction on any type of extension. The typical pattern of this Golden State front office is to extend with one year remaining. Even Stephen Curry waited until one year remained before signing his max extension last offseason. Green has two years remaining on the maximum extension he signed in 2019. While he could opt out a year earlier, the Warriors’ current preference is to talk extension with Green next summer.

The question becomes how does Green respond. No one wants an unhappy Green in the locker room. He is the team’s biggest voice. His presence is felt unlike any other player — when he’s fired up, when he’s angry, when he’s frustrated, when he’s contrite. How would he handle being told no extension after his stellar defense anchored an improbable run to another championship?

Does he demand a trade? Does he, again, take less money than he wants? Does he go public with intentions to opt out and leave the Warriors in free agency? Does he pour less into the young players and, essentially, stop grooming his replacements?

While his desire is to remain with the Warriors, Green is said to be willing to explore his outside options to get the kind of contract he wants. That’s a risk Warriors’ management appears willing to take. Green playing this season with a chip on his shoulder, motivated by proving to the league he deserves a max contact, could have a positive on-court impact.

Perhaps a bigger concern is how the NBA Finals MVP would feel about Green not getting an extension. Multiple sources said Curry would not be happy if the Warriors lost Green because the team didn’t want to pay him. Curry is under contract for four more years and has a desire for Green and Thompson to be with him for the length of his stay. A three-year extension would align Green’s contract with Curry’s.

Curry sees the Big Three as a package deal. While much of the talk of the season was about the Warriors’ plan to win-and-develop simultaneously, it isn’t lost on the veteran core how that plan disappeared in the postseason. It was all on them again, with the help of some critical vets.

The Warriors lost several key players who were pivotal during the playoff run. Otto Porter Jr., Gary Payton II, even Nemanja Bjelica, are all gone. Payton and Porter preferred to stay but left for more money than the Warriors were willing to offer, protecting against the rising tax.

That means the Warriors’ chances of winning another title hinge on capturing lightning in a bottle with another crop of role players or growth from the youth. Either scenario is only possible with Curry, Green and Thompson in tow, the core is convinced, which makes them worthy of contract extensions that allow them to stick together.

Keeping them together, however, likely means losing some other critical younger pieces. The Warriors’ front office, by their stated financial limits and by their responsibility to the future, are forced to consider life after the dynasty. They could hasten it this offseason with who they decide to extend. A scenario exists where they could sign Wiggins and Poole to contract extensions while Green and Thompson wait. One can imagine how the incumbent superstars might receive such a message.

Andrew Wiggins

Andrew Wiggins
(Kyle Terada / USA Today)
Of the four eligible, this currently profiles as the extension most likely to get done. The way Wiggins played in the postseason, especially the NBA Finals, made keeping him a priority. There have been some preliminary discussions already, but nothing is imminent, per sources.

Wiggins is entering the final season of his deal before unrestricted free agency. He will make $33.6 million. A 20-percent raise would put the starting salary of a max extension around $40.3 million.

But negotiations wouldn’t begin there. For Wiggins and the Warriors to meet in the same ballpark, all indications are the opening number must start below his max. But how much lower? That’s the larger question that’ll define whether anything gets done.

Wiggins just followed up an All-Star regular season with an eye-opening two-way jaunt through the playoffs. He rebounded at a career-best rate, scored a reasonably efficient 16.5 points per game as a secondary option and served as an effective primary defender against Luka Dončić and Jayson Tatum on the sport’s brightest stage. You could argue he was the second-best playoff player on a title team, especially in terms of consistency.

Wiggins doesn’t turn 28 until February. He’s a durable two-way wing who is now a proven contributor to a winning environment. On his next long-term deal, you’d theoretically get the prime years of his career. In the age of the extension, where the free-agent options have become increasingly slim, Wiggins would be among the most-desirable targets on the open market.

There aren’t a ton of teams with enough projected cap space to easily offer Wiggins a contract that begins near $35 million or above. But they exist. Would the Pistons feel ready to jumpstart the next phase of their rebuild before Cade Cunningham locks into a max? How about the Rockets or Pacers?

Wiggins is wise to the business side of the league. He experienced enough losing and turmoil in Minnesota to understand chasing every penny may not be worth joining a less-desirable situation. He’s come to appreciate the Warriors’ stable environment and fits well within the on- and off-court pecking order. It’s no secret it’d be difficult for him to willingly depart.

Maybe that provides some leverage for the Warriors this summer. Knowing his desire to stay and win could be enough to knock that starting salary on a theoretical extension offer down to a more reasonable range. A deal starting somewhere in the $27 million ballpark could be more doable for the Warriors and their out-of-control tax bill while providing Wiggins long-term security.

But the cap continues to rise, a new TV deal in 2025 could spike revenue up a few notches and Wiggins, if he remains the player we saw in the postseason, could suddenly look like a bargain if locked into something like a four-year, $121 million extension through his mid-prime. There are risks for all sides, including the looming contract angst if an extension doesn’t get done.

Jordan Poole

Jordan Poole
(Cary Edmondson / USA Today)
Oct. 18 is the big date for Poole. That’s the rookie extension deadline, near the beginning of the regular season. The Warriors are expected to engage with Poole’s representatives before then, but there doesn’t appear to be a level of urgency as August nears. Deadlines breed deals.

It’s not too difficult to project Poole’s market. Anfernee Simons just re-upped in Portland for four years and $100 million. Jalen Brunson just left the Mavericks to accept a four-year, $104 million contract from the Knicks. Poole is viewed in that realm and, if his final few months of his third season are any indication, could have a higher upside than both.

Poole averaged 24.7 points on 47.3 percent overall and 41.9 percent from 3 in the regular season’s final 21 games, filling in as a starter after Curry went down. He made an NBA-high 85 3s in March and April combined. He led the NBA in free-throw percentage (92.5 percent) for the season.

Poole then averaged 17 points on 51/39/92 shooting splits in 22 playoff games, scoring 14, 14 and 15 bench points in those last three finals wins to put away the Celtics. There appears to be a high-usage yet efficient hub of a young offense within his emerging statistical profile.

Some defensive concerns popped up deep in the playoffs. However, the type of team that would theoretically clear the deck and extend Poole a huge offer sheet in restricted free agency would be at the front end of their growth curve and less concerned about defensive flaws in May and June. He’d make sense as a target for the Spurs, Magic or Pacers — who just cashed out Deandre Ayton with an offer sheet, forcing the Suns to match.

Poole’s restricted free agency status lessens the likelihood of an extension in this particular situation. He has no reason to accept a discount, given the rapid season-over-season development he’s shown early in his career. Betting on himself keeps working.

But the Warriors appear intent on maintaining flexibility as they continue to search for ways to suppress their future tax bills. They can wait an extra summer on Poole, reassess their roster and priorities, while ultimately being able to match any contract he finds.

That risks an Ayton-type situation, which didn’t derail Phoenix’s regular season but certainly did seem to reveal itself as a sore spot when the Suns fizzled out in the playoffs. Poole — in a veteran locker room next to teammates who have nearly all played on discounts before — might find it tougher to voice displeasure. But what if he’s one of several players staring at an uncertain future after unsuccessful extension talks?

Klay Thompson


(Paul Rutherford / USA Today)
With two years, $83.8 million guaranteed left on his deal, he’s the least likely to get an extension this offseason. He’s also probably the most content with that.

There is no word of Thompson clamoring for a contract extension. He’s committed to taking advantage of his first healthy offseason since the summer of 2018 and getting even closer to the player he was before consecutive season-ending injuries.

Thompson made $106.1 million while playing a total of 32 games the last three regular seasons, all from a max extension he signed after tearing his ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals. While he did come up big on multiple occasions during the playoff run, and his mere presence helps Curry a ton because of the spacing he provides, there is no way to look at Thompson’s contract and not feel its massiveness. He will make $40.6 million this season and $43.2 million the following season. Even if everyone got their max, they’d still be well behind Thompson in salary.

Through no fault of his own, Thompson is the reason the Warriors are in this predicament. His massive contract, as the team’s second highest-paid player, eats up a big chunk of the cap space. His absence created the opportunity for Poole to start, and Thompson’s limitations in returning opened the door for Wiggins to reveal his immense value. Poole started while Thompson was out and proved he could be productive. Wiggins assumed Thompson’s role of defending the best perimeter player and became a folk hero in the process.

So it is fitting that Thompson may be the answer to keeping as many of this core as possible. The Warriors desperately need someone to take a discount, and Thompson makes the most sense. While he should have value around the league because of the demand for shooting, his combination of age and recent injury history figures to limit how much he can command on the open market. He’d need this coming season to prove he can move like he once did, defend like he once did, shoot efficiently like he once did, to command top dollar.

Not only did Thompson get paid handsomely to rehabilitate, but he is on the record about his admiration for Curry and how he won’t play for any other coach than Kerr. He might be the likeliest to make the financial sacrifice to keep the crew together.

But while getting Thompson at a discount would help keep him around for the future, it still wouldn’t prevent the massive payroll spike coming in 2023-24.

Another option for the Warriors: don’t extend anyone.

That would set up a last-hurrah type of season for 2022-23. It would give them another year to weigh their options. They’d have four members of their core playing for contracts, auditioning for the rest of the league. It also gives them another year to see if James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody are ready to step into larger roles should the Warriors move on from any of their aging superstars.

It sounds optimal in some ways to have all of them essentially in contract years, considering players tend to perform better when future money is at stake. But not giving anyone extensions after they helped deliver a championship could also lead to a few unhappy players in the locker room. Having core players uncertain about their future, perhaps even expecting their departure from the franchise, would seem to work against the cohesion needed to defend a championship. How does it impact the brand of the Warriors if such key players are feeling underappreciated and making it clear in various ways?

Next week begins what could be a tumultuous next 12 months as the two timelines are heading towards a financial collision.