$400m a season in salaries and tax for this roster...ugly. And it doesn't get any better in the years ahead.
Bob Myers signed them all and then bailed to let someone else clean it all up. Then again 4 championships tends to earn someone a lot of forgiveness 
I mean it does get a lot better after this season unless I am missing something. They get Klays 43 million off the books and Chris Paul’s 30 million will be waived. Draymond makes 25 million a year which doesn’t seem terrible for him with the tv contract. Looney at 7.5 doesn’t seem terrible either. Only real bad one is Wiggins right?
I was thinking more of their tax bill...they have $174k in active salaries next season including CP3's $30m. They've been in the luxury tax for years now so their total bill next season if they don't get under it will probably be somewhere around $450m, maybe close to $500m. So as you say they probably waive him unless they find someone willing to take him...if they do they will still be over the luxury tax. So assume they waive him, so that's $144m in active salaries with 10 committed contracts. Because they're still over the projected $141m cap they can't sign any free agents, and the $75m in cap holds won't give them any new cap space. So they have to go back to those vet min guys to fill out their roster. Going to be a tough few seasons for them unless maybe they bite the bullet and trade Steph while he's still worth something.
I mean they could trade draymond easily if they wanted, looney also. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t easily get under 141? But I admit I am not an expert on the cap stuff. Just seems like they have one bad contract next season and it isn’t awful (26 million dollars, the length is the problem). Think all the rookie contract guys are considered assets. Do kuminga or moody have value? They were obviously screwed this year cause nobody would take Klay or Paul but those guys are now gone.
For them to get to below $141m they would have to waive CP3 for sure, and hope another team either claims him (which they won't, at $30m) or he re-signs elsewhere. I believe (I have to check the CBA, I could be wrong) that his $30m salary stays as a cap hold unless someone signs him off waivers or he signs with another team. Right now they have $75m in cap holds even excluding that, which will prevent them signing anyone they don't have Bird rights to. I suppose he could clear waivers, re-sign with the Dubs for $5m, in which case his new cap hit would be $5m.
If that was the only thing they did it would bring them down to $144m with 10 active players on the books, with still at least 4 players to sign to get to the 14-15 players they need for a complete roster. Since they are over the salary cap they have to match salaries in trade, so trading Draymond doesn't mean they can send out his $25m and get less back. They could do that and maybe get a bunch of lower paid players on shorter contracts to free up cap space a year or more from now but I'm guessing they would probably have to send out picks to do so, which won't help their rebuild. Assume they re-sign Quinones, Saric, Garuba for $2m each, then that gets them to $150m in active roster cap, still $9m over. So even if Payton declines his $9m player option to resign with them for a vet min, they're still $2m over it and 2 players short of a full roster.
Also, I have a feeling they will extend Klay because he's one of the few ways they can get a replacement level player (i.e. not a vet min) because they can exceed the cap to resign him (other than trade). Maybe for $20m? It would be a number that would have to make Klay's contract fungible across the league so they can shop him for other assets or trade him later on. If he left in free agency they get nothing back for him and they're still over the cap and can't replace him with anyone other than on a vet min or MLE. They may choose to bring back CP3 on a lower salary too, in the hope of trading him elsewhere if they can.
The point I'm making is their contract situation is not something that can be easily fixed in a year - Dunleavy, if he stays in the role, really has his work cut out for him. Firstly to a) get them under the luxury tax so they can reset the repeater clock, otherwise they could conceivably be the first NBA team to have a roster costing half a billion in salary and tax, and one that would struggle to make the playoffs next season at that; and b) to rebuild the roster while having to possibly give away assets and draft picks to do so. I could see them getting below the luxury tax to try and reset it as part of a rebuild, but think I would see a flying pig over the Charles before I saw the Dubs getting below the salary cap this year 
What does everyone else think? Did I get it wrong? How would you fix the Dubs' cap situation? Blow it all up or try and remain competitive while paying tax and trying to fix it over time?
So multiple Tommy points for the break down. A few questions/points. If Paul’s contract is fully non guaranteed can’t they just waive him and the cap hold disappears. Also what happens if he just retires (which I think is definitely possibly after another injury plagued season where his play eroded to mid level bench player.
For Klay, could his value really be that high? I was thinking like 8 million as a best case scenario. Grayson Allen is much younger and has a bit more versatility to his game and he only got 17 a year. Klay can really only guard like a power forward now and he can’t even do that well. If he is a 38% shooter from 3, is 34 and doesn’t give you anything else, how valuable is that?
So I checked the CBA at
https://nbpa.com/cba and if a player has a non-guaranteed contract and is waived then his contract does not become a cap hold. This would apply whether he was waived or retired since the contract is non-guaranteed.
So in that case the Dubs would not be on the hook for CP3's contract and it would no longer count against their cap. Just for info any player who isn't re-signed by a team, or has a guaranteed contract that is waived and not claimed by a team on the waiver wire, their contract still counts against the team's cap for the purposes of determining free cap space, until that player signs elsewhere. So if CP3 is waived his $30m comes off both the books and the salary cap, while Klay's $43m would come off the books but still count as a cap hold of $43m until he signs a new contract, whether it's with GS or elsewhere.
It's also not beyond the realm of possibility that they would choose to not waive CP3 and instead decide to see if there are any takers for him given his contract is only for one more year, so maybe a team that thinks they could use a pass-first floor general or someone willing to take him for cap space. But if they did that they would most likely be in the tax for another year, and Lacob has said he wants to get under the tax and the second apron at least.
The question of how much Klay is worth is something everyone will have an opinion on
I guess I'm thinking of it not just in his intrinsic value based on his production, but also what value he might have elsewhere in the league in the event they choose to trade him. In other words, what would it take for Klay to not walk away for nothing, so they can get something back for him? Would another team pay him $20m? If so maybe the Dubs would pay him $20m and trade him to that other team to get something back that might actually be worth $20m.
It's a tough game to play though, because you could end up with an albatross contract which is untradeable. But at $8m he might walk and sign a higher number elsewhere, on the basis that some desperate team might throw money at him thinking they need a shooter and someone with the Klay mystique. Assuming they don't blow it up, GS has to work out what the sweet spot is where he would have suitors for trade but not where people think it's a total ripoff contract. Also keep in mind the Warriors offered him a 2 year $48m extension start of this season which he declined, and you'd have to believe this season he hasn't really done much to show he would be worth more than that.
Incidentally I picked 2 players I feel are similar to him now (good shooters, average to slightly above average defenders) - Sam Hauser and Kyle Korver to compare their production with Klay's. I picked Sam and Klay's current season, Kyle's last season with the Cavs in 2017-18 which was when he was already in decline but not terrible yet:
Obviously Klay's absolute numbers are greater because of his volume, but if you look at his Net Rating it's actually -5 and the other 2 are positive. Sam is getting paid $2m, Klay was at $43m, and Kyle at the time was at $8m 6 years ago. Of those three Sam's $2m comes out as an absolute steal. $20m would definitely be more than Klay would be worth on efficiency, and I personally wouldn't sign him for that, but it might be what his market value ends up being. Like Philly have always wanted Klay, they may decide to fill their cap space with him on the bet he's 32, maybe a solid offseason and a fresh start might do him good.
