Here’s a recap of the many angles of Golden State Warriors forward Harrison Barnes rookie contract extension talks.
As Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group reported back in June, both Barnes and Warriors management want him to stay with Golden State:
According to multiple sources, Barnes indeed wants an extension and the Warriors want to give him one. The only question is how much will he get.
In July Diamond Leung, also with the Bay Area News Group, reported the same after an interview with Barnes:
“Worrying about the contract and all that kind of stuff, it’ll work out,” Barnes said.
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“Joe Lacob has been obviously very vocal about keeping the team together, so therefore I’m not really too concerned about how it’s going to shake out.”
A week later, Bay Area News Group columnist Tim Kawakami followed that up by surmising that Barnes and the pursuit of impending summer-of-2016 free agent Kevin Durant are inextricably linked:
Let’s be clear and blunt: Any Warriors sign-and-trade offer for Durant would have to start with Harrison Barnes.
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It’d just have to–he plays the same position, he’s young and somebody I’d imagine OKC wouldn’t mind in any deal. But obviously that’d just be a tiny part of it; the Warriors would have to add much more.
Three nights ago, Barnes was first reported to have been offered an extension on his rookie contract by the team, as reported by Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
The offer of $16 million per year annually – comparable to teammate Draymond Green‘s five-year, $82.5 million extension this summer – had been negotiated by Barnes’ former agent, Jeff Wechsler. After that initial offer, Wechsler countered with a figure north of $16 million annually before he and Barnes parted ways, league sources said. Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports is representing Barnes now.
Warriors general manager Bob Myers said yesterday at media availability that he expects the negotiations with Barnes, like the NBA trade deadline and the Draft, to come down to the “last minute”. Per Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Small forward Harrison Barnes and backup center Festus Ezeli are up for possible extensions, and Myers said he’s working on both. Specifically on a potential deal with Barnes, Myers said: “Tune in Oct. 28-31.”
So why would Barnes reject a new salary (to kick in for the 2016-17 season, remember) of $16 million per year for four years?
Thompson offered this possible scenario:
Barnes is using the Warriors’ desire to upgrade his position against them. If they get Durant, whatever contract he gets doesn’t matter because it’s going to OKC before the Warriors pay a nickel of it. And if they don’t get Durant, they’re still paying way less than they would if they’d gotten Durant.
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As one source pontificated, maybe this is Barnes announcing his desire for a bigger role … on another team. Either the Warriors pay him like a top option, which would probably force them to play him like one, or he’ll go be that elsewhere. Maybe he wants to just play this year out and hit a free agent market on steroids.
Asked on September 25th by ESPN-W podcaster Cari Champion why he thinks he’s worth more than $64 million, Barnes replied, “I never went on record saying that.” [via Leung]
Leung got another opportunity to probe Barnes on the topic at his ProCamps youth basketball camp in Oakland last week, but Barnes of course stayed mum:
[Side note: Barnes actually said, “Diamond, you always ask the good questions. You always ask the good ones.”]
Asked what a change in representation would do for upcoming negotiations, Barnes smiled and replied that the reporter always asks good questions.
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Is there no good answer?
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“No good answer,” Barnes said at his basketball camp for grade school kids at Jamtown.
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Barnes did confirm his new agent is Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management after previously having been with Jeffrey Wechsler since the start of his career.
Bobby Marks, twenty-year veteran in the NBA and former 2010-15 executive with the New Jersey Nets (also Brooklyn, of course), then noted the following other clients of Schwartz:
Barnes joins Andre Drummond and Jeremy Lamb as other Schwartz clients looking for rookie extensions this fall. https://t.co/2GJJrNfYOz
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) September 18, 2015
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Marks also added Tyler Zeller as an affiliated client, as Zeller’s agent Sam Goldfeder works for Schwartz, then said, “Track record for Jeff Schwartz and rookie extensions; Kemba Walker (4/48-2014), Kevin Love (4/60-2012)” in a subsequent tweet.
Matt Moore presented an excellent case for the Warriors’ strong desires for retaining Barnes, adding video scouting reports and writing:
…We’ve established that there’s no real damage to the Warriors in pursuing an extension for Barnes. They’ll still have money to bolster the bench or re-sign players they need to next summer. The core is locked in. They don’t have the luxury tax concerns that small markets need worry about. Their ownership is not only willing but excited to pay for its championship core, and giving Barnes the extension won’t damage their theoretical pursuit of Durant.
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Getting good value for Barnes, though, could be tricky. Barnes does all the good things mentioned above and the problems with him disappearing or his inconsistency could be shaken with a potential relocation to a team that doesn’t have two All-NBA scorers on it. There will be a market for Barnes if he hits free agency, which puts more pressure on Golden State to get a deal done.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss also reinforced the reports of Warriors management’s desires:
As an aside, the Warriors (management and coaches) have consistently been more optimistic about his prospects than I have been. Where I see flaws, they see potential. I gripe about his miscommunications on defensive switches, they praise his focused one-on-one defense. I lament his lack of handle, they note that he recently adopted a couple of Curry’s ball-handling drills. I see a player benefiting from a small role, they see someone who might flourish if asked to be a big-time scorer.
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Barnes still makes an insane amount of money regardless of which perspective you buy. He has more leverage than what you might assume for a guy averaging 10 points a game. Thanks to the charging cash tsunami, and thanks to his defense against power forwards, Barnes’ position in these negotiations is, as Kerr might say, “deceptively strong.”
Zach Lowe of Grantland then tweeted that sources told him Barnes wanted Wechsler to lower the agent’s commission from the standard 4%, and finally, Ric Bucher noted today that the requested number was 2%.
Bucher also reported that his sources expect Wechsler to take Barnes to court and that the messiness could backfire on the NBA Players’ Association, as it pertains to agents and players needing a united front, as a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NBA starts to take shape.
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