Report: Warriors Targeting 2 Scoring Guards with Mid-Level Exception

The Golden State Warriors need more ball-handling talent to help Stephen Curry for the 2026-27 season, and they could use the mid-level exception to achieve that.

ClutchPoints Brett Siegel reported on Monday that the Warriors are targeting Anfernee Simons and Collin Sexton with the MLE in free agency.

Simons averaged 14.3 points per game across 55 appearances last season, mostly as a reserve for the Celtics.

Sexton averaged 15.4 points per game across 68 appearances with the Hornets and Bulls.

Dubs Might Need Nontaxpayer Mid-Level to Get Either

It's not clear what the market will be for Simons and Sexton.

They are both in their primes (26 and 27, respectively) and are three-level scorers who excel shooting threes.

Simons shot 38.5 percent from three last season, while Sexton shot 40.1 percent.

My guess is both will be seeking more than the taxpayer mid-level exception of about $6 million.

The nontaxpayer mid-level exception is about $15 million. To get access to that, the Warriors would have to be under the first apron ($209 million) with all of their player salaries for the 2026-27 season, and once they use the NTMLE, they would be hard-capped at the first apron.

It's certainly possible that the Warriors will have access to the NTMLE. As I wrote here, getting Draymond Green to decline his $27.7 million player option to sign a contract with a smaller salary for the 2026-27 season would help.

Warriors' Interest in Simons, Sexton Suggests They'll Draft a Wing

The Warriors desperately need wing depth, and ideally they'd use their MLE on that. But quality wings tend to cost more than the MLE to sign, so the Warriors might not have the ability to get one in free agency.

With that in mind, using the draft for wing depth and free agency for guard depth makes sense.

Ideally, the Warriors would draft a wing with positional size considering they only have one healthy player over 6'4" under contract for next season, and that's Gui Santos.

But two of the wings with positional size (Nate Ament and Karim Lopez) are more raw than the Warriors would like.

So that leaves Yaxel Lendeborg as the most obvious Golden State target.

The 6'8.75" wing would slot in nicely at the 3 and 4 positions.

If Lendeborg is off the board or isn't as high on Golden State's wish list as one might think, the other wings in the range of the 11th pick are Brayden Burries and Cameron Carr.

At 6'3.75", Burries doesn't have great positional size, but he'd probably be the best player available at 11, and he's certainly big and strong enough to hold his own with most wing matchups.

Carr is 6'4.5" with a huge wingspan (7'0.75") that makes him an intriguing prospect for two-way potential.

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