Warriors guard Stephen Curry is in line to land a five-year, $207 million contract next summer under terms of the new collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players, ESPN.com reports. Such a deal would be the largest in league history.
The Warriors, though, may have a hard time keeping their roster intact after this season, per the report.
Playing the last of a four-year, $44 million deal, Curry is widely considered one of the most underpaid players in the NBA. While the guard is making $12 million this season, his next deal could triple that figure to $36 million for 2017-18.
The new designated veteran player provision that will create the windfall for Curry allows teams to re-sign superstars meeting certain thresholds to deals worth as much as 35 percent of the salary cap. Under the previous CBA, a player with Curry’s level of experience could sign deals worth 30 percent of the cap.
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The rule will make it extremely difficult for another team to lure Curry from Golden State — the max contract he could sign elsewhere is for $135 million over four years, ESPN notes.
The provision is intended to help small-market teams retain their stars, and ironically, it is appears to be partly based on Kevin Durant's decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder to join Curry in Golden State last summer.
Meanwhile, since Durant has been in the league for 10 years, he’ll also be eligible to sign a deal next summer worth $36 million annually. But since he’ll have been in Golden State for only one season, the Warriors will not be able to use the designated player exception to sign him.
That means the Warriors will likely have to clear cap space to keep Durant. The team has Klay Thompson and Draymond Green locked up with long-term deals, but if it signs Curry and Durant to max contracts, it might not have the cap space to bring back free-agents-to-be like Andre Iguodala and Shawn Livingston. Spinning it further forward, the Warriors may eventually have to choose between Thompson and Green as their second designated veteran player exception.