Podziemski got his $110 million, and Golden State kept most of next summer

Golden State has spent the fall saving for one summer. On Saturday it took a small withdrawal.

Brandin Podziemski agreed to a five-year, $110 million extension, his agent Bill Duffy told Shams Charania of ESPN, nine days before the October 19 deadline for rookie-scale deals. The contract is fully guaranteed. It has a trade kicker. It ends with a 2031-32 mutual option that, as ESPN describes it, either side can opt into and neither can opt out of, which is a door with a handle on both sides and no lock. (The point, per ESPN, is that it lets the two sides reopen extension talks that summer. Lawyers will enjoy it.)

The headline number is $110 million. The number that mattered to the front office is $18.9 million.

That is what Podziemski makes in 2027-28, the first season of the new deal, per Anthony Slater of ESPN. It rises by the largest raise the rules allow each year after that, 8 percent of the first-year salary, to a $25 million option season. This season he is still on his rookie contract at $5.6 million.

The jar#

Here is why the first year was the fight. General manager Mike Dunleavy has built a roster full of expiring contracts so the Warriors can have real cap room in July 2027, and he talked Stephen Curry into a smaller extension last month to protect it. ESPN put the value of Curry's cut at about $10 million of space next summer. That is the jar. Everybody in the building has been told not to touch it.

Podziemski was always going to cost something, though, even if Golden State waited. Without an extension he would have been a restricted free agent next summer with a cap hold of about $17 million, per ESPN, and that hold sits on the books eating room until he signs or the club renounces him. So the extension's real price against the jar is not $18.9 million. It is the gap between $18.9 million and $17 million.

About $1.9 million.

ESPN reports, citing team sources, that keeping the first-year salary "at a manageable level" was an important point for the Warriors as talks picked up over the past month. It was. They gave up about a fifth of the room Curry bought them, and in exchange they removed the version of next summer where another club writes Podziemski a bigger offer sheet and Golden State has to match it out of the same jar. Bobby Marks of ESPN says the Warriors could still have $55 million to $60 million in space, a figure that counts on releasing Kristaps Porzingis, who has $3 million of his $20 million for 2027-28 guaranteed and is out indefinitely with a health issue.

(I said on September 26 that he would not sign before the deadline, on the theory that a club guarding its room that hard would wait. The front office found the version where it did not have to choose. That is the better answer, and it was not mine.)

What they are paying for#

Podziemski is 23. He was the 19th pick in 2023 and the first player Dunleavy drafted. He played all 82 games last season, one of 18 players in the league to do it, and started 43 of them, averaging 13.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists. He opens this season as the starting shooting guard next to Curry.

The durability is most of the case on this roster. Golden State begins the year without Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody, both rehabbing serious knee injuries, and without a date for Porzingis. Curry played 43 games last season. The one rotation player the training staff has never had to plan around is the one who just got paid.

"Brandin is a huge part of our team," Steve Kerr said, per ESPN. "He makes people better. He understands the game."

ESPN also notes the concern on the other side: with Curry and Butler out for long stretches last season, Podziemski took on a bigger offensive role and struggled to grow into it before settling down late in the year. That is the bet inside the bet. $18.9 million is a fair price for a connector who plays every night. Whether he is more than that is what the next four seasons of 8 percent raises are wagering on.

Anyway. The deadline problem is gone, the restricted free agency problem is gone, and the jar for July 2027 is lighter by about $1.9 million.

Golden State will take that trade every time.

Sources: The five-year, $110 million terms, Bill Duffy as agent, the full guarantee, the trade kicker, the 2031-32 mutual option and how it works, the $5.6 million 2026-27 salary, the $18.9 million first year and the $25 million option year, the maximum raises, the roughly $17 million cap hold and $1.9 million difference, the team sources on the first-year salary, the roughly $10 million Curry figure, Bobby Marks's $55 million to $60 million range and the Porzingis guarantee, the 19th pick and Dunleavy's first pick, the 82 games and the 18 players, Butler, Moody and Porzingis's status, the Kerr quotation and the note on last season's offensive role from Shams Charania and Anthony Slater, ESPN, October 10, 2026. The 43 starts and the 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists from Hoops Rumors (Dana Gauruder), October 10, 2026, relaying Charania, Slater and Keith Smith of Spotrac, which also carries the October 19 deadline. Curry's 43 games from the Warriors' release of September 25, 2026.