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Kevon Looney’s agent explains how deal with Warriors went down

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© Orlando Ramirez | 2018 Apr 8


On Monday, July 1, the Warriors inked Kevon Looney to a 3-year deal worth $15 million. With the departure of Kevin Durant, people saw Looney as one of top priorities for Golden State. With cap space already at a premium, it didn’t look like Warriors were going to have the ability to re-sign the big man following the D’Angelo Russell trade. Well, Bob Myers did it again.

There were several different aspects that went into Looney re-signing with the team that drafted him 30th overall in the 2015 NBA draft. Looney’s agent, Todd Ramasar, took time Tuesday night to talk with Mark Willard on KNBR 680 about what went into the negotiations.

“They had a certain amount of money available. They stretched it a little bit more between Sunday and Monday once the deal went through,” Ramasar said. “Doing an evaluation of the market, if you look at some of the signings at the position across the league, and even see some of the other free agents at Kevon’s position that are available – I did an analysis and shared it with Kevon and his family and other advisers, and Kevon made a decision that was in his best interest to go back to familiar territory. The economics worked out in the end.”

In today’s sports world so much of the attention is put on the superstars of each team, and with players Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson being on the roster, the Warriors had no shortage of star power. Ramasar detailed just how that can affect a player like Looney’s market.

“We found interest from other teams,” Ramasar said. “Overall, when you have role players like Kevon, whether it be at his position or other positions, I think when other teams look at those players, sometimes the value that they are truly bringing are devalued because of all the talent on that roster, and the success that that team has.

Obviously the spotlight is on the superstars. This past season with Kevin, Steph (Curry), Klay (Thompson), Draymond (Green), and then you even have an all-star in DeMarcus (Cousins). So, when you have someone like Kevon contributing and the analytics are saying one thing, sometimes the general managers aren’t putting as much value on the player, even when the analytics are telling a certain story. Looking at Kevon’s pedigree – four trips to the Finals, two rings at the age of 23 – that’s a lot of hardware and experience.”

As similarly stated above, having the players the Warriors had on the court last year, Looney had a particular role carved out for him. Yet, with all the roster turnover the Warriors have endured over the past few weeks, Ramasar sees it as an opportunity for Looney to show what he is capable of.

“Watching Kevon as a teenager to blossoming to where he’s at now, he is only scratching the surface in terms of the offensive end,” Ramasar said. “Kevon going back to the Warriors – Steve [Kerr] knows what he’s capable of, those guys have seen him in practice, they studied him coming out of high school and college, they know what his skill set is. Now it’s going to be an opportunity with the change in that roster for Kevon to actually show it now…It’s time for the young guys like Kevon to step up and fill the roles for those that have left.”

Ramasar noted that they could have waited out the market to see what other options would have presented themselves, but there was a high risk in doing so.

“Could we have waited because some of those teams expressed interest in Kevon? Yes, but do we run a serious risk with some of the other bigs still available that he could have taken an even lesser deal. So we went with what the Warriors had expressed to Kevon, as a major interest to bring him back, as a foundational piece for the team moving forward. It was familiar territory; Kevon made the decision and he is happy with it.”

Listen to the full interview here: