During the downturned years of the Warriors – as decades, rather – they drew a lot of bad contracts.
Corey Maggette and Derek Fisher come to the order. Adonal Foyle remains affiliated with and does important work for the franchise, but he is also included on that list.
However, due to their recent dynastic run, the Warriors have no albatrosses on their balance sheet. They had various enormous salaries, yes, but the players who signed them were worth it.
Andre Iguodala was one of those players after signing a three-year, $ 48 million contract with Golden State in 2013 in a three-team deal. He signed another three-year, $ 48 million contract with the Warriors at the end of that deal, of which he is currently in his final year of while playing for the Miami Heat.
Considering the Warriors never missed the playoffs during Iguodala’s tenure with the team, reaching five straight NBA finals, winning three championships and setting the regular season record for winning, both of those contracts were well spent.
And yet, Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz listed Iguodala’s second contract as the Warriors’ worst signing of recent decades.
Huh?
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To be honest, Swartz’s whole premise was built from a methodology in which he divides the contract value of the time a player spends with the team into costs per profit share. Before Golden State traded Iguodala to the Memphis Grizzlies last year, he earned $ 30.8 million of that $ 48 million total with the Warriors.
Dividing that $ 30.8 million by the total profit share of Iguodala over those two seasons, you get a value of $ 4.2 million in cost per profit share.
Iguodala averaged 5.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 0.9 steals over those two seasons, so on paper his production did not match his salary. Considered by that limited scope, Iguodala’s contributions, which did not appear on the State Gazette, are completely ignored.
Throughout his career, Iguodala has always been more valuable than his stats might appear. Ask anyone with whom he has played on the Warriors or the coaching staff, and they will rave about everything he has provided.
In those two seasons that Iguodala spent with Golden State on his second contract, the Warriors won one NBA Championship, and most likely would have won a second, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson had no serious injuries at the end of the season. 2019 NBA Finals.
I would say that only proves that Iguodala’s contract was worth it.
But that’s not all.
In Iguodala’s trade with the Grizzlies, the Warriors received a whopping $ 17.2 million exemption expiring on October 24th. With that trade exception, Golden State could get any player whose salary is 2020-21 of equal or lesser value.
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That trade exception is probably the Warriors’ top non-player asset at the moment, right up there with their top-five draft pick for the first round of 2020 and the top three protected 2021 rounds of the Minnesota Timberwolves. In theory, Iguodala’s contributions to Golden State have not yet been concluded.
Sure, Iguodala’s second contract may seem relentless as they are split into win shares. But if that’s the worst free agent contract the Warriors have signed in decades, it’s just going to show how monumental a turnaround the franchise has undergone.
