The Warriors waived forward Marquese Chriss after playing 37 games for them. The move comes ahead of the January 10 deadline to waive players on non-guaranteed contracts before they become fully guaranteed.
The Warriors were roughly $375,000 below the $138.928 million hard cap, or apron, throughout the season. Chriss’s contract was non-guaranteed and added $9,485 daily to the Warriors payroll. By waiving him on January 7, Chriss leaves the Warriors with a $758,804 dead cap hit.
The Warriors are now $1,236,685 below the apron, leaving them plenty of space to sign one of Damion Lee or Ky Bowman to a standard contract.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Warriors intend on converting Lee for now, who has run out his 45-day two-way clock.
If Lee is signed on January 7, his pro-rated minimum salary would be $915,573. This would put the Warriors $321,112 below the apron. They would have to trade a minimum-salaried player, such as Alec Burks or Glenn Robinson III, to clear enough room to sign Bowman to his minimum salary.
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The Warriors still have $1.7 million remaining from their taxpayer mid-level exception. There is a strong possibility that the Warriors use part of the exception to sign Lee in order to give him at least a three-year contract. By using the exception, the Warriors could also pay Lee a little more than the minimum salary.