FanPost

Can the Warriors sign Al Horford?

Or seeing through the media B.S. - Golden State Edition

Reports are flowing that the Warriors are targeting everyone and their mother including our Al Horford, but take a deep breath and don't believe the hype. Yes, it could happen but if you understand what it would take it becomes very unlikely.

Quick look at the current Warriors roster situation and next year's price tags.

Klay Thompson 16,663,575
Draymond Green 15,330,435
Stephen Curry 12,112,359

No one thinks they will get better by moving one of those guys. That's $44,106,369 of cap space.

Next we have the money they can't move: Jason Thompson's stretch clause bill 6,825,000. That's $50,931,369 of cap space.

Next we have the guys they might move to create space:

Andrew Bogut 11,027,027
Andre Iguodala 11,710,456
Kevin Looney 1,142,880
Damian Jones 976,300

That's $24,856,663 of cap space for a total of $75,788,032. That's for 7 players. They would still have 5 minimum salary holds if they renounced all of their free agents (about $2.5M). With a projected cap of 94M, the would only have 16M to offer a free agent without making a trade. That's not enough to sign Durant, Horford, and Whiteside together. It's not enough to sign any one of them. To sign one max player they need to deal either Bogut or Iguodala and renounce everyone else. Is gutting their bench a good way to proceed?

If they managed to trade all 4 of those players, they would still have about 55M in salaries for 3 players and 9 minimum cap holds. Is 39M enough to sign 2 max players? Durant and Horford are both eligible for a starting salary of 26-27M. Do they leave 6-8M on the table to play on a super team? How would the team fill out it's bench? How many draft pick assets would it take to move those salaries without taking money back in return?

Miami assembled their big 3 under the previous CBA using sign and trades and have little on their cap except Dwayne Wade cap hold. The Warriors aren't in that situation. They have 3 key players making fairly big money already. The rules are structured to keep them from being able to do what the media seems to be trying to convince people they will do. They won't be able to come for our Center unless they shedding another player making big money first unless they can convince player and team to do a sign and trade. That's another thing this CBA plugged by preventing players from getting bigger raises and extra years and picking their home.

Just remember that when the media says that Golden State is targeting someone like Al Horford (or Kevin Durant) that it doesn't mean a thing unless they make at least 1 trade and also renounce the free agents that I didn't already mention:

Harrison Barnes
Shaun Livingston
Marreese Speights
Leandro Barbosa
Festus Ezeli
Ian Clark
James Michael McAdoo
Anderson Varejao

ESPN won't bother to tell you this because the facts make the story a lot less interesting.

A FanPost expresses the opinion of the community member who wrote it and not that of the blog management.