During the crisis years the Warriors – or rather, decades – signed A lot of bad contracts.
Corey Maggette and Derek Fisher come to mind. Adonal Foyle continues to be affiliated and does important work for the franchise, but he’s included on that list as well.
During their recent dynastic run, however, the Warriors had no albatrosses on their balance sheet. They had several huge salaries, yes, but the players who signed up for them were worth it.
Andre Iguodala was one of those players, having signed a $ 48 million four-year deal with Golden State coming into a three-team swap in 2013. He signed another $ 48 million three-year deal with the Warriors upon the conclusion of that deal. , of which he is currently in his senior year while playing for the Miami Heat.
Considering that the Warriors never lost the playoffs during Iguodala’s tenure with the team, reached five consecutive NBA Finals, won three championships and set the record for regular season wins, both contracts were money well spent.
Still, Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report listed Iguodala’s second deal as the Warriors’ worst free-agent purchase of the last decade.
Eh?
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To be fair, Swartz’s entire premise was built on a methodology where he split the contract value of the time the player spent with the team into cost per share of victory. Before Golden State ceded Iguodala to the Memphis Grizzlies last season, he made $ 30.8 million of the $ 48 million with the Warriors.
By dividing the $ 30.8 million by Iguodala’s total winning stakes over those two seasons, you get $ 4.2 million in cost per share.
Iguodala averaged 5.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 0.9 steals in those two seasons, so on paper his output didn’t match his salary. However, examining it through that limited scope completely ignores Iguodala’s contributions that didn’t end up on the stat sheet.
Throughout his career, Iguodala has always been more valuable than his stats may appear. Ask anyone who has played with the Warriors or the coaching staff and they will be thrilled with everything it has provided.
In those two seasons that Iguodala spent with the Golden State for second contract, the Warriors won an NBA championship, and most likely would have won a second had Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson not sustained serious end-of-season injuries in the NBA Finals. 2019.
I would say that alone proves that Iguodala’s contract was worth it.
But that is not all.
By trading Iguodala for the Grizzlies, the Warriors received a whopping $ 17.2 million trade exception that expires on October 24. With this trading exception, Golden State could acquire any player whose 2020-21 salary is of equal or lesser value.
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That commercial exception is arguably the Warriors’ main non-player asset at the moment, right up there with their pick in the first round first round of the top five of 2020 and the protected first round pick of 2021 of the top three of the Minnesota Timberwolves. In theory, Iguodala’s contributions to Golden State are not yet concluded.
Sure, Iguodala’s second contract might seem exorbitant when split into winning stakes. But if this is the worst free agent deal the Warriors have signed in the last decade, it just goes to show how monumental the franchise reversal has been.
