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How much are Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli worth?
Moving forward, the greatest challenge for the Golden State Warriors will be retaining all, or at least most, of the team's young assets.
Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are on board for the next half-decade with near-max contracts, and Stephen Curry is due for a max extension in the $30-million-per-year range.
But two of the team's young rotation cogs from the 2012 draft class, Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli, will be up for early extensions this fall, and how the team manages — or mismanages — the contract negotiations could play a significant role in the team's ability to remain a Western juggernaut for the foreseeable future.
Over at Grantland, Zach Lowe previewed what Barnes and Ezeli are worth with the massive impending salary cap bump in 2016, and how the Warriors will navigate the extension talks.
Here's Lowe on Barnes' inevitable mega-contract:
"Harrison Barnes: Golden State has only three players under contract for 2017-18, but two of them — Thompson and Draymond Green — make huge money, and if things go well, Stephen Curry will join them on a max deal starting around $30 million. The Warriors will need to replace Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala, and they have ambitions of luring another star free agent to the Bay as those older players fly off the books.
Barnes may fit into that equation as something like an Iguodala successor, only with a better 3-point stroke and the size to spend more time at power forward. But he was the fourth option in Golden State’s starting lineup — and the fifth-best playmaker in that group — and guys who don’t create off the bounce don’t typically get mega-extensions unless they are 7 feet tall.
But Barnes thrived in that low-usage role for a title team that wants to preserve its dreamy chemistry, and he’s in plum position to demand huge money if he hits free agency. DeMarre Carroll just nabbed $14.5 million per season from Toronto, and he’s six years older than Barnes. There’s only about a $6 million difference between Carroll’s deal and Barnes’s Year 1 max, and if there’s any room for back-and-forth in extension talks, it’s within that space. Barnes won’t come any cheaper."
And here's Lowe on Ezeli's sneaky value:
"Festus Ezeli: Don’t laugh when the Warriors re-sign Ezeli, participant in just 124 regular-season games over three injury-riddled seasons, to something like a four-year, $40 million extension this fall. Ezeli is an explosive leaper who protects the rim on defense, and his stone hands have softened just enough that he can at least catch the ball and dunk it when he’s wide open — and cram down offensive rebounds.
Ezeli doesn’t yet have the feel to be an ideal big-man cog in Steve Kerr’s system — he had just nine assists last season — but if you surround him with shooting, he can work as a screen-setter and finisher. He’s the only realistic heir to Bogut on the Dubs roster, and even if the Warriors someday deem him unfit for that job, he’d be movable at that number."
Read the rest of Lowe's piece at Grantland.
