As the Golden State Warriors have navigated this offseason, their defining narrative has been their inability to negotiate a contract extension with restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga: a conundrum that has held them entirely inactive as we approach training camp.

However, as much as the front office and their general indecision on Kuminga’s value can be blamed for their current predicament, the Warriors as an organization have also made several stellar decisions in recent years, and among the forefront of them is the team-friendly extension they signed Moses Moody to last offseason.

Now, as similar free agents such as Nikola Jovic of the Miami Heat approach the end of their rookie contracts, rival organizations will be attempting to achieve exactly what Golden State did in extending Moody.

Moses Moody’s team-friendly contract may have set an example for rival organizations

Moody, through his first three seasons with the Warriors after being selected 14th overall in the 2021 NBA Draft, showed promise as a young 3-and-D player but had not yet developed enough to be worth of a massive rookie extension. Through his first 181 games, Moody averaged 5.9 points, 2.1 rebounds and 0.7 assists in what was largely a bench role for Golden State.

Therefore, the three-year, $37.5 million extension he signed at the time seemed perfectly reasonable. Yet, last season, despite a hand injury that hurt his shooting towards the end, Moody veritably broke out. He took on the starting shooting guard role for much of the season after the Jimmy Butler trade, averaging 9.8 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.3 assists and shooting 37.4% from beyond the arc.

Now, as Jovic, who has played in a similarly limited role with the Heat, enters his fourth season in the league, Sam Vecenie of The Game Theory Podcast has claimed that his extension should be modeled after Moody’s: “[Jovic’s extension] is simple; this is just like Moses Moody-ish money. He hasn’t quite proven enough yet to where I’m locked and loaded… but I think he’s pretty good. I think he’s a useful rotation player at the very least.”

Jovic, last season with Miami, averaged 10.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists, shooting a remarkably similar 37.1% from 3-point range. Moreover, while he averaged 25.1 minutes per game, he only started 10 of his 46 outings for the Heat.

With an offseason partially defined by the contentious restricted free agencies of players like Kuminga, Cam Thomas and Josh Giddey, it has become clear that the new financial landscape of the NBA has irrevocably changed the process of rookie extensions. Both Kuminga and Giddey entered the offseason with the intention of earning close to $30 million a year: a simply untenable number in the current state of the league’s market.

If the Warriors have indeed been able to set a benchmark with rotational players nearing the end of their rookie contract, they have yet again proven that they are a capable front office despite their handling of the Kuminga situation.