Warriors Lock Up Brandin Podziemski on a Five-Year, $110 Million Extension

SAN FRANCISCO

The Warriors just did the smart thing, the boring thing, and — here's the part that matters — the thing almost nobody gets right anymore: they paid a good player real money without panicking. Five years, $110 million, fully guaranteed for Brandin Podziemski, done Saturday before the rookie-scale extension deadline. No restricted free agency circus next summer. No matching an offer sheet someone else writes. Their guy, their number, their timeline.

The news broke the way these things always break now: Shams Charania on ESPN with the agent's name attached — Bill Duffy of WME Basketball — and then the team announcement a few hours later with the quote from general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. "We're thrilled to get an extension done with Brandin prior to the deadline," Dunleavy said. "Brandin has continued to improve and expand his game since he entered the league as a mid-first round pick, and we think his upward trajectory will only continue. He's a durable, skilled two-way player that makes our team better each time he takes the court."

Durable is the word to underline. Podziemski played all 82 last season — 43 starts — and led the team in minutes. That's a 23-year-old doing two-way guard work in Steve Kerr's system, which asks more of a guard's brain than almost any offense in the league, and he's up to 220 career games already. The line for 2025-26: 13.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 37.1 percent from three on 153 makes — second on the team only to Curry's 190. Career: 11.6 / 5.3 / 3.6. This is not a gamble on potential. This is a price for a known thing.

Now the part of the contract that made everyone in the league offices do a double take: the mutual option in the final season, 2031-32. Per ESPN's Anthony Slater, it's structured so that either side can opt in — and neither side can opt out. Read that again, because it's the whole point: nobody's getting trapped and nobody's getting cut loose. If Podziemski blows up into a $30M-a-year player by then, both sides get to sit down and redo the math on his extension eligibility. If he's exactly what he is now, the final year triggers and Golden State keeps a proven rotation guard at about $25M. It's a handshake dressed up as contract language — flexibility for both sides, pressure on neither — and you can see why Dunleavy signed off on it.

The salary ladder itself, per Spotrac's Keith Smith via Hoops Rumors: $5.6M this season on the last year of the rookie deal, then $18.9M in 2027-28, climbing with the maximum 8% annual raises — roughly $20.5M, $22M, $23.5M — to that $25M mutual-option year. There's also a trade kicker worth the lesser of $1M and 15% of unearned base compensation, per Jake Fischer of the Stein Line. The detail that really mattered to Golden State's cap people: Podziemski's cap hold next summer would have been around $17M, so the $18.9M first-year salary is less than $2M above it. Translation: the Warriors paid essentially what the system would have charged them anyway, and in return they got cost certainty and no RFA headache.

And Podziemski sounds like a guy who gets it. "For me it shows a sign of faith and trust on their end, wanting me here," he told ESPN. "I think for me I just owe it right back to them. They're putting their trust and faith in me so I got to do the same and play that way each and every night." That's the right note — no grandstanding, no counting the zeros out loud. Kerr has trusted him with real minutes since his rookie year, and on Saturday night he repaid some of it, burying back-to-back threes in the third quarter as Golden State beat Sacramento 111-106 in preseason at Chase Center (more on that night in our Saturday preseason wrap). Fan favorite isn't a metric, but it doesn't hurt.

Zoom out and this is the clearest signal yet of the plan. Dunleavy has been protective of the 2027-28 cap sheet for a reason: the roster is loaded with expiring contracts, Curry took a $10M pay cut for next season to preserve flexibility per ESPN, and NBC Sports has the Warriors projected at $55-60M in cap space next summer with four tradable first-round picks. That is a war chest. It can chase a star beside Curry — who opens the regular season at the Lakers on Oct. 21 with a team that finally has room to maneuver — or it can bring back Jimmy Butler, expected to return from his torn ACL around February 2027, and Draymond Green. Signing Podziemski now, at a number that fits inside that summer, keeps both doors open. That's the whole game.

There's league-wide context, too. Podziemski is the fifth player from the 2023 draft class — the Wembanyama class — to sign a rookie-scale extension, joining Victor Wembanyama (Spurs), Amen Thompson (Rockets), Ausar Thompson (Pistons), and Keyonte George (Jazz). The deadline for everyone else is Oct. 19, and front offices around the league are watching the number: $22M a year average for a 23-year-old two-way guard who led his team in minutes is going to show up in every agent's pitch for the next nine days.

One more thing worth saying about the guy himself, because the class matters. Podziemski was the first draft pick Mike Dunleavy Jr. ever made as Golden State's GM. There's symbolism in that — the pick that announced the new era is now the first player of that era to get the long-term bag. Whether you're a draft-room believer or a cap-sheet cynic, the logic lands the same way: this is a franchise paying its own homework. See where the summer could go in our 2026-27 season preview, and keep the injury wire close — Butler's February return will define everything about that cap space.