Report: Klay expected to take pay cut in Dubs extension offer originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
Klay Thompson will be back with the Warriors next season, but it’s uncertain what his future with the team will look like — or cost — ahead of a potential contract extension with his longtime team.
The four-time NBA champion is eligible for an extension this summer as he enters the final year of his five-year, $190 million Warriors contract. And with Thompson scheduled to make $43.2 million during the 2023-24 NBA season, The Athletic’s Shams Charania and Anthony Slater reported Friday that if he does extend with Golden State this summer, the “expectation” is that Thompson would have to accept a pay cut .
With the Warriors’ ever-increasing luxury-tax bill and new CBA rules to consider, a pay cut by Thompson, similar to that of Andrew Wiggins last summer, could go a long way. Wiggins signed a four-year, $109 million extension last offseason and dropped from $33.6 million to $24 million and $26 million, respectively, in the first two years of the new contract.
Charania and Slater’s report came shortly after the Warriors were eliminated from the NBA playoffs Friday night, where Thompson scored eight points on 3-of-19 shooting in Golden State’s Game 6 loss. Thompson shot just 25 percent from the floor during the last four games of the Western Conference semifinals against the Lakers, making 10 of 36 3-point attempts during that span.
Considering Thompson’s injury history and the way he ended the Warriors’ most recent playoff run, Golden State reportedly expects Thompson to make less than the $43.2 million he’s scheduled to bring in next season makes sense. With players like Steph Curry and the recently extended Wiggins and Jordan Poole on the roster, things are already expensive.
Now, with an extension for Thompson to consider along with a multiyear deal for Draymond Green reportedly in the works, the Warriors have plenty of questions to answer this offseason — including whether or not president of basketball operations and general manager Bob Myers will be back .
A request for Thompson to take a pay cut, as Slater and Charania point out, would land “softer from Myers rather than a [Warriors owner Joe] Lacob-led front office.”
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Following the Warriors’ loss at Cypto.com Arena on Friday, Thompson made it clear he’s more focused on the task now at hand: Getting back to the postseason next season.
“… I obviously wish I would have shot the ball much more efficiently,” Thompson told reporters. “Probably had the worst shooting series I’ve had in a long time.
“At the end of the day, though, I’m still on contract with the Dubs, and I’m going to use it for fuel to be better come next postseason.”
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