Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. made it clear that retaining guard Brandin Podziemski is a priority for the organization, writes Nick Friedell of The Athletic.
Podziemski, the 19th overall pick of the 2023 draft, is eligible for a rookie scale extension until the day before the regular season begins and will be on track for restricted free agency in 2027 if a new deal isn’t reached. Dunleavy said he’d prefer to extend Podziemski rather than have his contract situation drag out until next summer.
“That’s important to us,” Dunleavy said. “We really value Brandin. He’s a player that for all the things he does well, most importantly, impacts winning. When he’s on the court, we’re a better team. So, any time you got a guy like that, you want to be able to keep him around.
“Obviously, we have multiple ways to do it through extension and restricted free agency and all that, but we’d prefer to get it done sooner than later. We really like Brandin. He’s done a terrific job for us, and he’s a big part of our program.”
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Dunleavy told reporters, including Friedell, that he hopes Draymond Green will spend the rest of his career with Golden State. After declining his $27.7MM player option for 2026/27 to give the team the opportunity to pursue LeBron James, Green re-signed with the Warriors on essentially the exact same contract. “Draymond’s been an incredible partner for our organization, both on and off the court, for his career,” Dunleavy said. “This summer was no different with his ability to opt out of the deal; it gave us some wiggle room, some financial flexibility. And we worked together on that, and I don’t think there was ever a doubt he’d be back, but he’s always been about the team … he’s no different than Steph in the sense of we hope he retires a Warrior. We want to make that happen, he wants to make it happen, so we’ll see where things go. Our No. 1 priority right now, Draymond will say this, Steph will say this, everybody here will say this, is to win.”
While his comments aboutStephen Curry, Podziemski and Green were certainly notable, Dunleavy also said the team plans to have a full 15-man standard roster to open the regular season, per Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area. As Johnson notes, the Warriors have opened the past few seasons with an open roster spot, but Dunleavy thinks that will change in 2026/27. “I think we’ll go 15, based on the injuries to Moses (Moody) and Jimmy (Butler),” Dunleavy said. “That puts us at 13 on opening night – available players. To stick with 14, a lot of that was kind of avoiding tax and apron issues. I think right now we put ourselves in a position to carry 15 on opening night, and would be pretty surprised if we didn’t.”
As Luke Adams wrote earlier this week in a Front Office Original, carrying two more veteran’s deals would leave the Warriors just $348K below their second-apron hard cap. Signing second-round pick Lajae Jones to a rookie minimum deal would save the Warriors some money, Johnson observes, but Golden State also has an open two-way spot. Dunleavy said the front office is still evaluating the team’s back-end roster spots. “Those are some of the things we’re still working through,” Dunleavy said. “The 14, 15 spots, the two-ways, those will all kind of unfold here in the next few weeks, leading up to and into camp. Stay tuned on all that stuff. We’ll have a solution by opening night, but nothing in stone yet.”
Dunleavy claimed on Tuesday that he saw a “path” to the Warriors winning the championship next year if things break the right way. Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area says Dunleavy’s optimism is “Fantasy Lane,” arguing that there are more reasons to believe the team will be under .500 again than in contention after finishing last season with a 37-45 record and largely running back the same roster.