My buddy Mike Liwanag, architect of the East Bay’s SAVS Brand, whose apparel infrastructure lies beneath popular local clothing lines like Collect+Select and Who Cares, owned by brothers Christian and Alex “AMart” Martin, used to have this on his Instagram bio — btw, he’s since changed it and I’m gonna guess originally he got it from Jay-Z, who may have gotten it from someone else:
Men lie,
Women lie,
Numbers don’t.
To me, that just about summarizes the restricted free agency of Jonathan Kuminga. Trademark this: Cap sheet don’t lie!™️
Also, use your best Rasheed Wallace voice when saying it!
NOTE: All of the stuff I’ve written below, I’ve already talked about multiple times on our livestream watch parties. Here are just two of the latest and greatest. I encourage you to hop on some time and let’s talk about all things Golden State…
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46:00 mark of Valkyries-Sparks watch party: On how Kuminga should wait until October 1st to make a decision, if nothing changes until then (more on this below, of course)
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56:30 mark of Valkyries-Aces: On the various numbers that have been reported from each side (of course, more on this below as well)
When you have Yossi Gozlan’s Capsheets.com website in front of you and you have some basic understanding of how the salary cap works and can get by with some of the core principles of the first and second apron, it all starts to make sense.
Here’s how I’ve seen the numbers play out — these have also all been covered, as they happen, on our free Discord server (see Description/Comments for where to signup):
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On July 29th, Marc Stein of The Stein Line reports the first number revealed in the JK “saga”: $20 million offered to JK. To me, this establishes the floor and is, not surprisingly as negotiations go, a rather low-ball first number. This is especially evident when you look at other comparable contracts. In particular, this summer Jabari Smith signed a contract worth a $24.4 million average annual value (AAV), but we’ll come back to this later.
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The next day, Anthony Slater of ESPN then finds out Kuminga’s camp suggested to the Warriors a 3-year, $82 million proposal (AAV = $27.3 million), with Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and Joe Lacob’s offer at two years, $45 million (AAV = $22.5 million).
Where do these numbers come from? The cap sheet!
The $45M/2Y number
The Warriors have nine contracts committed so far for the upcoming 2025-26 season. Kuminga would be the 10th signed player, Al Horford the 11th, perhaps De’Anthony Melton the 12th, perhaps Gary Payton II (or any other player paid the veteran’s minimum) the 13th, and yet again some other veteran as the 14th player.
In the following spreadsheet which has appeared on-screen during our livestreams, I put one Wardell Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green in red, as they are assumed untradeable for the foreseeable future:
In the NBA, each team must have at least 14 of the 15 possible roster slots on an NBA team filled, although there are very slight exceptions to this rule. Also, this does not include the three two-way roster slots that an NBA team can have at any one time.
The Warriors usually only sign their 15th full NBA contract on the last day of the regular season. This dates back at least as far as the regime under Bob Myers.
The main reason for leaving the 15th spot open is to save on very punitive multiplicative luxury tax payments and repeater penalties by simply having one less salary slot, but then also it’s to have as many players as possible eligible for the playoffs in case of injuries that might decimate the roster during the playoffs. Typically signing that 15th player involves converting one of the two-way players to a regular NBA contract.
For 2024-25, it was Braxton Key. But doing so also meant Key officially became a rookie NBA player last season. Now that he officially has one season under his belt, his minimum contract goes up a little bit to a veteran’s minimum with one year of service, should he be signed somewhere in the NBA for this upcoming 2025-26 season.
To save money, a team can fill out roster slots with rookie salaries (zero years of service) — excluding the first-round Draft pick rookie scale, whereby salaries are set in stone and were negotiated as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and the Players’ Association.
This rookie salary is roughly $1 million less than what counts against the salary cap for a veteran of at least two years of service at the so-called “veteran’s minimum,” which are all counted as players with two years of NBA service. Therefore, there are three possibilities of a veteran’s minimum with different “cap hits”: the cheapest is the rookie minimum, then the vet min with one year of service (what Key will probably make if he signs somewhere this season), and any other veteran with two or more years of service whereby the cap hit is set at the level of two years of service.
One of the most basic rules of the CBA is that teams can exceed the salary cap if they are filling out their roster with free agents making a veteran’s minimum contract. Continuing on with the roster slots and filling out Gozlan’s cap sheet spreadsheet for the Warriors, if you force in values that equal the two-year veteran’s minimum as the cap hit for those spots — required for any typical veteran free agent that the Dubs would usually sign — the math tells you the following:
You must pay Kuminga no more than $22,447,501 for the 2025-26 season to stay under the second apron, as seen on the above spreadsheet. Again, this is with the 14th and 15th spots filled with 2nd year vet min figures (neither of them are rookies).
You must stay under the second apron because you plan to utilize the so-called Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (TPMLE, which is up to about $5.8 million) to sign Horford. That’s quite simply the rule for using that exception.
Btw, this is also good for Horford because $5.8 million is a whole lot better than the veteran’s minimum for a player with 10+ years of service, which is $3.63 million per SpoTrac.com. If you look at the 29 other cap sheets in the league, you might make an educated guess that there are probably no other teams in the NBA willing to utilize a TPMLE specifically on Horford. Boston didn’t want to do it because they were trying to get under the luxury tax line. Most teams that are paying the luxury tax would probably rather use their TPMLE on some other younger player. That is the main reason why Horford is inextricably linked to Golden State in reports.
Obviously, the fit is there. He would probably have a good chance at being a regular starter as a “stretch 5” in a system designed around Curry to open up three-pointers for him and his teammates. Horford getting signed at the TPMLE is clearly a win-win for both parties, especially if you are familiar with cap sheets — the more you familiarize yourself with cap sheets, the less you have to rely on reports to confirm and reconfirm what already rings true: Horford to Golden State using the TPMLE is a no-brainer.
It should be well-known by now that the Warriors cannot utilize this TPMLE on Horford before Kuminga is signed. Again, a team in the luxury tax may use the TPMLE, but it will then be hard-capped at the second apron. If Horford were to sign with GSW at that TPMLE before JK signs at all, Brooklyn could swoop in and offer a contract that puts the combined Golden State salaries with JK matched at the Nets’ offer, let’s say, $30 million — although some spreadsheet work should indicate that around $27 million should do it, as you’ll see below — and hurtle the Warriors past the second apron. As that’s illegal due to usage of the TPMLE to acquire Horford, GSW would effectively not be able to match BKN’s offer and would lose JK to the Nets simply due to the math of the second apron.
Again, Horford must wait for JK to sign his contract first.
As far as Kuminga is concerned, $22,447,501 also happens to be pretty close to that $45M/2Y figure that Slater reported. Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic did say recently on the Warriors Plus-Minus podcast that Year 1 of this offer is at $21.4 million (therefore $23.6 million in Year Two) — I’m assuming he got this from sources. So with our math, that would give Dunleavy about a million in wiggle room below the second apron. That sounds fair.
Granted, this value for Kuminga’s 2025-26 salary is determined with that 15th spot filled outright with another standard veteran’s minimum (see spreadsheet above).
And I brought up Key earlier for a reason. You haven’t heard his name nor anybody else’s from last year — Jackson Rowe’s two-way deal last year was for two years, so technically one of the three two-way spots has already been filled — because the Kuminga negotiations have dependency on whether or not the 15th spot is left open, signed with a rookie minimum, or signed with a veteran’s minimum.
Those decisions on the 14th and 15th slots affect Kuminga’s contract value, and vice-versa, by a few million dollars. But here’s the rub, at least for me: the Warriors practically never sign that 15th guy until the last day of the season, which brings us to…
The $82M/3Y number
What if we left the 15th spot open (zero cap hit), like Dunleavy and Myers before him usually do, and changed the 14th spot from any non-rookie veteran to a rookie?
You can find this on SpoTrac, but the money given to a player for a veteran’s minimum contract depends on the years of service. That’s how we got the value of $3.63 million for Horford if he was not offered the TPMLE, above. But for salary cap purposes, again, it’s counted at the two-year vet min value, which is set by the CBA for the 2025-26 season at $2,296,274. The contract value of a rookie with no years of prior NBA service is set at $1,272,870.
So, what is the maximum value that Kuminga can get that is still under the second apron, if the Warriors sign their 14th player to the rookie minimum?
Well, the CBA states that we have to roster at least 14 players, so if we leave the 15th spot open ($0) and fill the 14th slot with the lowest NBA salary possible, the rookie minimum of $1,272,870 — say, with Will Richard — then JK’s salary for 2025-26 is… 🥁
$25,767,179!
Unless there is a slight flaw in my spreadsheet work, there is no possible practical route for JK to get more than $25,767,179 for 2025-26, based on the above numbers and the rules for teams above the first apron and below the second apron. Incidentally, the actual contract almost certainly wouldn’t be exactly $25,767,179 because you’d want to have a little wiggle room underneath the second apron for practical purposes.
That means the proposed contract from Kuminga’s agent, Aaron Turner, probably consists of ascending numbers to ultimately reach the reported figure of $82 million. If you divide that total by three years, you get an AAV of $27.3 million. Because our math in the spreadsheet above yielded a first-year salary of about $25.8 million, maybe Turner has suggested something like this:
2025-26: $25 million
2026-27: $27 million
2027-28: $30 million
Perhaps it’s more backloaded, as the contracts of Steph, Jimmy and Dray all expire the Summer of 2027, so the 2027-28 figure can actually be a big one. Therefore, ending up with a $30 million contract for 2027-28 seems doable. It’s not hard to see how the math can easily lead to that $82 million figure.
And so I suspect that Turner’s suggestion of $82 million over three years takes into consideration the 14th slot being a rookie minimum and the 15th slot being left open.
Which leads me to this conclusion: $24.4 million (Jabari Smith’s AAV) seems to be a nice middle ground between this $25.8 million and the aforementioned $21.4 million. The Smith AAV isn’t the exact middle of the two extremes, but I’m reading the Dunleavy/Lacob offer as a low-ball first offer — remember, the rumor of $20 million was first tweeted by Stein. That gives Dunleavy/Lacob some room to operate and mix-and-match dollars and options, all the way up to my stated absolute first year ceiling of $25,767,179.
Maybe they end up with $24.4 million and that second year as a team option, or as Tim Kawakami of the SF Standard has suggested, a partially guaranteed number.
Smith, the Rockets’ bench rotation combo forward, signed an extension this summer that ends up at $122 million over five years (again, AAV = $24.4 million). Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic tweeted that it will start at “$23.64 million, then dip in Year 2 before going back up in Year 3 and up to $27.43 million in the last year (a ‘roller coaster’ deal). The Rockets are clearly planning for big salaries in the 2027-28 season.”
While Smith’s situation is different than Kuminga’s, they are similarly sized athletes and Jabari was drafted just a year later than JK. They both have had a similar role, coming off the bench.
Signing JK for five years obviously isn’t gonna happen with Steph, Jimmy and Draymond coming off the books in the summer of 2027, so we are only looking at AAV values in comparison with Smith.
Not to go on a tangent, but I was told by a reliable NBA insider at Summer League (and then it was also reported publicly) that the Warriors stayed clear of Grayson Allen in any talks of a sign-and-trade with Phoenix because of the length of his contract.
There was also the absence of a first-round Draft pick in the Suns’ coffers. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Golden State wanting some compensation in the form of a first-round pick for sending out the Kuminga contract that would also be subject to the Base-Year Compensation (BYC) rule, whereby the Warriors can only count 50% of JK’s contract value for salary matching purposes in a trade.
I also have no problem with SAC balking at that same desire of an unprotected first-round Draft pick by GSW. The BYC rule is just a tough rule to get around. Kawakami on the Warriors Plus-Minus podcast also said that Dunleavy has shut down sign-and-trade offers. They don’t want to complicate matters and they want Kuminga and Turner solely focused on the initial $45M/2Y offer.
Incidentally, if you do the spreadsheet work on a possible sign-and-trade deal for Malik Monk, you will see that it is very difficult to pull off, based on all the salary matching and BYC rules of a trade required by the CBA. It’s a waste of time to go down that rabbit hole, especially for fans, so there is really no need to engage in a debate when the chances of a Monk-for-JK happening are near nil. Studying a ton of cap sheets on various livestreams on the LetsGoWarriors YouTube channel since June, we’ve analyzed a great many trade scenarios and found so many of them far-fetched.
But I digress.
Why not just meet in the middle?
If we force $24,400,000 as JK’s salary in the same spreadsheet, then make sure the 15th slot is zeroed out — in all practical fairness, Dunleavy and Lacob really should not demand that this slot gets filled in any Kuminga contract scenario — then also pin the 14th slot with a non-rookie veteran’s minimum (i.e., Richard gets a two-way contract, instead), then you’re about $400k under the second apron, which is good enough wiggle room imo.
Whether you’re Dunleavy/Lacob or Kuminga/Turner, you say, Hey look, we matched Jabari Smith’s contract, you can’t be mad at that.
Incidentally, all of the above? It’s been this way since free agency started.
That’s why anyone who’s paid close attention to what I’ve been saying on the LetsGoWarriors YouTube channel, just keep calm and Kuminga on.
There is no reason to be outraged by anything. Cap sheet don’t lie. Really!
Especially when nothing else is happening in the market to affect these negotiations. No interested teams with cap space, no injuries to key personnel, no other buyout or stretch provision bomb shells that affect the position JK plays, that might trickle down to this negotiation. And finally, no other movement on other restricted free agents.
I would say Dunleavy and Lacob have been lucky so far. At the end of the day — or in this case, the summer — getting JK at $24-ish million is a steal when you consider Franz Wagner’s extension of around $37 million per. Remember, he was picked at 8th in the 2021 Draft, right after JK at No. 7. That’s dodging a bullet in the grand scheme of things, if you’re the Warriors’ front office.
What about the Qualifying Offer (QO)?
As part of a combined report regarding all of the major outstanding restricted free agents, a few days ago Slater reported that “Kuminga has indicated to those close to him that the $7.9 million qualifying offer is more appealing to him than the Warriors’ current pitch.”
First of all, due to the potential of injury — and there have, obviously, been more instances of Achilles heels tearing of late — I would be shocked if JK took the QO of $7.9 million, which per CBA rules would prevent him from being traded this upcoming season, but also makes him an unrestricted free agent for next summer.
The risk of injury is just too scary, for JK’s sake, and I thought Danny Emerman of the SF Standard said it best in his morning article the other day: “Just comparing it to the two-year, $45 million reported offer, he’d essentially be paying $13.8 million for the right to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.”
Is there a contract next summer that gets him back that $13.8 million? It’s hard to predict future markets, but that’s a lot of money.
But if Kuminga really isn’t bluffing, fyi a salary for JK at just $7.9 million would open a lot of options for Dunleavy. Not a ton, but still a lot.
Without Horford yet signed, GSW would suddenly find itself under the luxury tax line, which would open up the option to use a Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (NTMLE), which is worth $14.1 million and can be used like a slush fund to acquire free agents (plural).
The crazy thing is, getting under the luxury tax line also avails you the Bi-Annual Exception (BAE) of $5.1 million! But I ran the numbers: the Warriors cap situation wouldn’t allow them to use it as they’ll roll past the first apron hard cap (for using the NTMLE) if they also use the BAE.
The Lakers, for example, have utilized both the NTMLE as well as the BAE to acquire Jake LaRavia, Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart. Obviously, their cap sheet is not as top-heavy as Golden State’s. It would actually be a good cap sheet exercise to go through the reasons why LAL can find itself utilizing both the NTMLE and BAE when GSW can only do the former and not the latter — maybe I’ll do this on a forthcoming livestream (it’s a little complicated to describe in words here).
Back to the Dubs, so okay, forget the BAE and focus on the NTMLE. Let’s even assume that Melton, who is coming off a serious injury, is just happy with the veteran’s minimum, which would be $3.3 million for a player entering into his 8th year of service, per SpoTrac. So let’s say we don’t even need to use any of the NTMLE on Melton; he’s in the bag.
With up to three roster spots to fill, how about if we still give Horford the $5.8 million he was promised (the TPMLE), and turn around and use the remaining $8.3 million on, idk, Russell Westbrook?
At last check, Westbrook is rumored to be heading to Sacramento — I like to use HoopsHype’s Rumors tab for any given NBA player for this, so go check that feature out some time. Can the Kings offer more than the $3.63 million vet min and potentially compete against our imagined $8.3 million, if JK took the QO? Let’s go down the rabbit hole and take a look (thank you again, Yossi)!
The Kings are over the cap, so they can’t just sign Westbrook using cap space, but they are also about $3 million under the luxury tax line, which means they can access the their own NTMLE. They have a couple non-guaranteed contracts they can shed to stay under the tax while also putting into play the NTMLE to acquire Russ. And they might have to make a trade or two for more wiggle room. Let’s just assume worst-case scenario, they figure it out and create enough wiggle room.
With no guarantees of making the playoffs or even the Play-in, you’d assume the Kings probably want to stay under the tax line, so there would be a lot of moving parts, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that SAC could outbid the Warriors for Russ because GSW still needs to pay Horford part of their NTMLE.
Would Russ prefer to take less, albeit potentially still more than the vet min, to come off the bench for the probable playoff team Warriors instead of the aimless Kings? 🤔
Anyways, let the speculation run rampant at that point, but depending on the market for these remaining vets and even if you couldn’t grab Westbrook, you could even split half the remaining $8.3 million left over from the NTMLE after signing Horford to get both, say, Amir Coffey or Malcom Brogdon. Or some combination of the above. Seth Curry has also been mentioned.
Now, Coffey was reported to have taken an Exhibit 10 deal with Milwaukee, but that would not preclude him from taking a guaranteed contract somewhere else, like some part of our NTMLE. Or maybe he’d take a vet min spot from us and we’d use some of the NTMLE on Brodgon or Seth. Hopefully, you’re seeing how this works.
In short, we’re talking the end of the bench anyways and the NTMLE could be used to outbid teams that are stuck with only offering the vet min to these type of guys.
The same reason why Westbrook, Brogdon and/or Seth haven’t signed anywhere yet is probably the same reason why Golden State hasn’t signed any new two-way contracts. They’re all waiting for the stalemate with Kuminga to resolve because it has a direct affect on the last few slots and staying under the second apron.
The NBA is, often times, a food chain.
But I would not describe JK taking the QO as a totally bad thing for Dunleavy. There is definitely some roster optionality that comes with Kuminga at that paltry $7.9 million slot, even though it’s late in the summer.
In addition to bidding up some of these remaining quality vets, you could sign Horford (and Westbrook and Coffey) for more years per the rules involving the NTMLE than you would have the TPMLE, which would’ve only been available to Horford, and maybe make it a team option out further. So there are additional advantages for being under the luxury tax line and using its exception.
With JK at $7.9 million and Horford at $5.8 million, it’s like you either have about $8 million of the NTMLE left to spend, or forget all that and just sign JK for between $21.4 and $24.4 million. Therefore, you lose about $13 to 16 million of contract value you could’ve traded away in a mid-season Kuminga package had JK signed the $20-ish million deal. That’s contract value you’ll never get back.
That’s pretty bad, but that’s not “nuclear” in my book. It’s still around a NTMLE free agent if you can get under the luxury tax line next summer. And if JK signs the QO to become an unrestricted free agent, he’s probably not coming back and you can probably duck under the tax again to enable the NTMLE as an option. So, like, Kuminga out, but next summer’s equivalent of Nickeil Alexander-Walker or Dorian Finney-Smith in? I don’t think that’s necessarily “nuclear”.
Incidentally, any deal for a Giannis Antetokuonmpo or franchise type guy ($50-ish million or more) you’d have to involve Jimmy’s contract anyways, assuming Dray is not trade-able so long as Curry remains a Warrior — “shared brain” philosophy, per Luke Walton; I just don’t see Steph being okay with trading Draymond, ever.
Nevertheless, I just don’t want JK or, really, any NBA player to risk injury. So assuming he’s bluffing, aside from the few million of wiggle room as my cap sheet analysis revealed, the contention between JK and GSW would boil down to a team versus player option for the second year. But that’s where we should let the two parties figure it out in our capitalistic society. As I’ve shown, there’s only so much you can do between a floor of $45m/2y and a ceiling of $82m/3y.
Is Dunleavy negotiating in bad faith?
Below are some things I’ve been told happening behind closed doors. This will be paywalled for subscribers only until the next post is written, whenever that is. But last thing I’ll say before the paywall regarding the cap sheet is, I still haven’t wrapped my brain around why Dunleavy/Lacob would be so insistent on a second-year team option. I tend to think it’s a negotiation tactic.
Below the paywall, I also explain why I would advise JK to wait until the last possible moment to decide. This could be October 1st.