Goodbye the Warriors? It is revealed that Payton Jr. may leave the team again! There are only five people left in the 22-year championship lineup

After the door to the NBA free market officially opened in 2025, the Rockets in the West showed off their magical operations and frantically strengthened their recruits. They have now become the league's top forward team and will target the championship in the new season. At the same time, the Nuggets are also not to be outdone, and almost improved the offensive and defensive power of the starting lineup again. The player configuration is perfect, and Jokic is likely to continue to play in Denver. It can be said that the Rockets and the Nuggets are the big winners of the Western Conference and can fully compete with the defending champion Thunder in the new season.

However, the Warriors and the Lakers, as traffic brigades, seemed extremely calm, and fans on both sides became quite upset.

According to the famous journalist Sam Amick, according to sources, in addition to Ayton, Horford is also a potential target for the Lakers, and the team is looking for ways to fill the gap in the frontcourt. We can also see that on Ayton's social media, he posted a photo of himself wearing a hat with the Los Angeles Lakers' print; this may also be one of the basis for his upcoming joining the Lakers, and the team also has the salary space to introduce it.

As for the Golden State Warriors, according to Warriors reporter Monte Poole, 3D guard Payton Jr. may leave the team again. His salary last season was $9.1 million, and his veteran's base salary next season is $3.3 million. Although I like this team very much, I averaged 15 minutes of playing time last season and scored 6.5 points, 3 rebounds and 1.3 assists. However, due to the instability on the offensive end, the management has not offered him a new contract at the moment, which is likely to cause him to leave the team.

But we can also understand that the Warriors' goal is to compete for the championship, and this summer's task is naturally to continue to improve the player's configuration, so it is completely understandable to eliminate players with uneven offense and defense.

On the first day when the free market door opened, Rooney joined the Pelicans with a two-year contract of 16 million. The Warriors lost one of the inside lines, and the only centers in the current lineup are Post, Davis and Green. Judging from the lineup configuration, the Warriors management did not retain Rooney and may have found a new signing target. According to previous reports from the American Journal, the Warriors are likely to pursue former Celtics inside Horford, but the latter is still waiting and the choice is in his hand.

In this way, in the Warriors' team that won the championship three years ago, there are only five people left Curry, Green, Moody, Cumingga and Payton Jr., and only the top three people hold the contract. Payton Jr. and Cumingga may not be able to continue to play for the team.

As for whether Kumingga will sign first and then switch with the team and leave the team? Team reporter Tim reported that if Kumingga could get a big contract, this incident would have happened on the first day the free market door opened. In short, Kumingga's market conditions were average, and no team immediately offered him a maximum salary quote, so he was now in such a passive situation. However, the Warriors may still keep him, after all, they have previously offered him a yearly qualification offer of 7.9 million.

If Kuminga chooses to match, he will continue to play for the Warriors for a year, and he will be able to truly become a free agent and enter the market again until this time next year.

But this does not mean there is no risk. If he continues to get up and doesn't play well, or performs in a sluggish manner, head coach Cole will continue to press it on the bench. After all, this is just a player with an annual salary of less than 8 million US dollars. If you deliberately brush data, you will definitely not get too much time to play. In this way, if there is no team that has given a big contract for Kumingga, he can only continue to stay with the Warriors and can only work hard to achieve a game that satisfies Cole's performance.

Otherwise, his career will enter a dark downturn, so don't talk about the dream of becoming a great player.