1. The 49ers and Trent Williams are likely headed toward a new contract restructuring — not a breakup — despite the alarm-bell ESPN headline earlier this week.
I heard the same thing from NFL sources this week that I heard in the weeks and months before ESPN reported that Williams and the 49ers were struggling to come to an agreement, which the report heavily implied could lead to the 49ers releasing Williams before they’d have to make a $10 million up-front payment.
Umm, no, the sources said. Unless something crazy happens, the 49ers intend to add more guaranteed money to Williams’ deal and Williams, who turns 38 in July, intends to be with the 49ers through the rest of his career.
Certainly, the financial terms have to be figured out. Definitely, there could be, as there almost always is with the 49ers and high-profile players, some tension during the back and forth. The player wants more. The team wants to pay less. And guaranteeing future money gets riskier as players age.
But why would the 49ers release Williams — and create a $34 million dead-cap hit — over a relatively minor $10 million payment then watch him play left tackle for somebody else this season? It’s sort of silly to even pretend that could happen.
And unlike with Deebo Samuel and several other big offloads in recent offseasons, the 49ers want Williams on the team in 2026. They have the cap space. Most importantly, as several sources pointed out, the 49ers have no plausible replacement for Williams.
Call it the Austen Pleasants Tax. If you go into an offseason with Pleasants as your theoretical fallback option to replace a future Hall of Famer at an extremely important position, you are admitting that you have to pay the future HOF-er almost every dollar that he wants.
Again, I’ve been told that the 49ers generally understand this. They haven’t used a draft pick on a tackle since 2021, when they selected Jaylon Moore in the fifth round — then lost him to free agency last March. They haven’t brought in a young veteran. There’s no way they could count on a player from this year’s draft to plug right into protecting Brock Purdy’s blind side against the Seahawks, Rams, or anybody else.
The 49ers have just continued to ride with Williams, who turned in the 12th Pro Bowl season of his career and gutted through both playoff games on a bad hamstring. The 49ers need him now, even going into his age-38 season, just as much as they needed him two seasons ago, when he held out through training camp then got a top-dollar guarantee through last season.
(Wait, the 49ers amazingly might need Williams even more now, closer to 40 than he is to 35, than they did in 2024.)
Williams presumably wants a guarantee through 2026 and probably at least a partial guarantee into 2027 — theoretically increasing his remaining guarantee to about $35 million, up from the current $0.
The 2024 restructure was designed for this; the 49ers can either do nothing and deal with Williams’ $38.8 million cap hit this season or guarantee more in the future to lower the ‘26 hit. Or Williams could just hold out again if there’s no agreement and force the 49ers to do something by late August.
This has all happened before. Because Williams remains great, it’s happening again, and it’s due to happen just like it did two years ago, all over again. (But maybe quicker this time.)
2. A theory on why the 49ers’ big contract talks get so spicy so often: Their negotiators often come in hot and heavy at the start, which provokes strong reactions from the other side.
Sometimes agents come in hot and heavy, too of course, which might’ve been the initiating part of this most recent ESPN report. It sure read like an agent firing a flare into the sky to get some attention. Successfully, I’d say.
But the 49ers and their fans are susceptible to nerve-rattling, at least in public view, because they’ve had so many torturous and distracting negotiations in the recent past.
And I believe that many of the toughest moments in these negotiations have happened because the 49ers’ negotiators have a habit of starting the talks with a hard line and maybe some harsher-than-necessary words.
That’s exactly what I heard with the Deebo negotiations in 2022, after his monster 2021 campaign, when sources indicated that the 49ers opened talks by telling his camp that his body wasn’t likely to hold up long enough for him to be worth huge long-term money. Probably not wrong, but not very nice!
I don’t exactly know what happened in the Brandon Aiyuk talks last offseason; clearly, some of the most disconnecting moments came from Aiyuk’s camp. But it’s not like the 49ers’ side did much to keep things calm, either. 49ers executives threatened (and were ready) to trade Aiyuk throughout that summer; it wasn’t just joshing around when Kyle Shanahan raced to stop any potential trade after Aiyuk said he’d agree to the 49ers’ last offer.
Of course, the 49ers have still ended up paying market rate or more for Aiyuk, Deebo, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, and George Kittle despite some anxious times in all of those negotiations. And they gave in a little last season and sweetened Jauan Jennings’ deal after some stormy times. Maybe the only slightly discounted recent big deal was with Purdy last May, but he still got $53 million a year and he wasn’t in the mood to get jumpy about anything, anyway.
For this negotiation, maybe the 49ers’ negotiators tossed out a big-bluff, “hey, we don’t have to pay you anything, starting with that $10 million.” And the ESPN report easily could’ve been the Williams camp’s loud retort — yeah, go ahead. Because they’d know the 49ers were just bluffing. It’s part of the process, I guess.
John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan have overseen several contentious negotations with star players. | Source: Chris Unger/Getty Images3. For the Warriors, trying to find a way to retain De’Anthony Melton and maybe even Al Horford might be almost as important as adding a big-name player this summer.
The Warriors’ top execs probably have brainstormed through dozens of white boards filled with ways to land Giannis Antetokounmpo, Trey Murphy III, Bam Adebayo, or, what the heck, even Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, or LeBron James this coming offseason … and presumably have not allocated much dream space for scenarios to re-sign Melton and Horford.
Which is understandable. Without one more star added to Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and a healed Jimmy Butler next season, the Warriors won’t be a title contender. And this whole thing is about title contention.
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The Warriors also have the added layer of figuring out what to do with newly acquired Kristaps Porzingis, who could be re-signed as a third/fourth star or used in a sign-and-trade to land a new big name. (Draymond could be in the same category.)
However … if the Warriors can’t land Giannis or another superstar and this is about putting together a decent roster next season, it might come down to either Porzingis or Melton, with Horford as a potential add-on with Melton.
And unless Porzingis shows real evidence that he can be counted on next season, if I was the Warriors, I might prioritize keeping Melton and adding Horford as the main stretch-center if he wants to keep playing with the Warriors.
Here’s the math: Melton is signed for the minimum now, but he’s played his way far above that going into the offseason. He’s not a star, but he’s really good in the driving, finishing, just-be-tough ways the Warriors need. On the market this summer, Melton likely will be worth most or all of the nontaxpayer mid-level exception, which is projected to be about $15 million.
But the Warriors likely won’t be under the tax line and eligible for the NTPMLE unless they wipe away Porzingis’ current salary slot. Easiest way to do that: Let him walk for nothing as a free agent.
That would be a big loss, of course. The Warriors crave that extra talent. And if they don’t retain Porzingis or acquire a similar talent in a S&T, that would be a big drop-off for the Warriors. But it’d get them out of the tax. Which would make them immediately eligible to use the NTPMLE on Melton or whoever else.
They can’t really sign both. The Warriors would want both, but it’d take a big roster cleansing to make it possible. Which I don’t think is happening. So the Warriors likely will have to choose. It’s not the way a title-contender wants to operate in the offseason, but those days might’ve passed for the Warriors.
Note: If you use one of the MLEs, you’re hard-capped at the first apron, which the Warriors experienced this cycle because they signed Horford to the taxpayer MLE.
De’Anthony Melton is averaging 12.7 points per game for the Warriors this season. | Source: Amber Pietz/The Standard4. Six consecutive home games to start their post-Olympic finishing run? That’s a perfect way for the Sharks to leverage Macklin Celebrini’s superstar turn in the Olympics.
There’s no better time than right now for the Sharks to grab some of the Bay Area spotlight — Celebrini’s a certified NHL alpha-to-be, Stephen Curry is out, the Giants are weeks away from Opening Day, the 49ers are doing draft and free-agent research, and the Sharks can make a lot of happy noise at SAP Center over the next 10 days.
The Sharks need to skip over a few teams to get into the playoffs, but a hot run through this homestand could get them right there. Then they’ll have to hold on.
Celebrini is definitely good enough to carry the Sharks into the playoffs practically by himself — just a season after the Sharks had the worst record in the league. He’s got some other up-and-comers alongside. And if the Sharks make it into the playoffs, especially if the Warriors are already into their offseason by then, it might be a pivot point for the franchise.
I also want to see how this affects the home crowd. The Sharks have the second-lowest average attendance in the league so far this season (according to Hockey-Reference.com), behind only Winnipeg — and not counting Utah, which is selling out its 12,0478-seat capacity in an arena that is due to be renovated and expanded.
But the Sharks’ 15,750 average is a good deal higher than the reported average of 14,219 last season, which was higher than the reported 13,559 in 2023-24.
It’s going in the right direction. The team is absolutely going in the right direction. That all could accelerate starting right now.