The defending NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors, currently have 13 players on its roster for the 2017-2018 season and Javale Mcgee is not one of them. Given that an NBA team can have 15 players, it seems a no-brainer that McGee will fill one of the two remaining slots. Except that he has not. Reports coming from the Bay Area suggest that McGee feels slighted by the Warriors when the team re-signed Zaza Pachulia and offered a mid-level exception contract to Nick Young.
JaVale McGee on his way out?
JaVale McGee played sparingly last season for the Golden State Warriors but whenever he is on the floor, he always makes a huge impact.
So massive an impact, in fact, that his presence usually turns the momentum for the Dubs with timely dunks, blocks, or rebounds. McGee's value was in full view during the 2017 NBA Finals when the Dubs elected to play big. So why is McGee still not under contract with the team he helped win an NBA championship, or with any NBA team for that matter?
A source close to the situation revealed to The Mercury News that JaVale McGee feels he has done enough to warrant at least a chance to start for the Warriors, at least get more floor time, or at least get a pay raise. The Dubs starting center, Zaza Pachulia, not only got to re-sign with the team, but he also got a 20 percent raise, increasing his salary to $3.5 million.
To make matters worse for McGee, the Warriors signed Nick Young using the mid-level exception ($5.2 million) that McGee reportedly felt he has earned.
As it stands, the Golden State Warriors can only sign JaVale McGee to a veteran minimum of about $2.1 million. Any more than that and the Dubs would go way over the luxury tax.
And now that the Warriors have rewarded their core players for what they are due, there doesn’t seem enough money left on the table for McGee. Bob Myers, the Golden State Warriors’ general manager, said that they don’t have any money for centers. And if the Warriors decide not to bring McGee back, he’d have no choice to find himself a team that would value his contributions.
What will it take to make JaVale McGee Stay with the Warriors?
There is no denying that JaVale McGee wants to stay with the Warriors and the center has repeatedly declared that he loves the Bay Area and wants to return. There is also no denying that the Dubs helped resurrect his career so the chance of McGee staying with the Warriors is still a possibility. While there is still a number of teams having an interest in the Warriors' backup center, there is no telling that those teams could give McGee what he wants.
So for JaVale McGee to remain a Warrior, the Dubs front office either have to sign him to a contract close to what they gave Zaza Pachulia and suffer the tax penalties or adopt a wait-and-see approach and hope that McGee decides for himself that he really want to stay with the Warriors. For what it's worth, there aren't many teams looking for back centers in this day's three-pointer-happy NBA, so the Warriors still has an inside track with JaVale McGee.
