A new CBA was ratified and went into effect in the summer of 2016. This caused the cap to spike by 30m that offseason (the NBAPA voted for this, the league warned them not to). Because Steph Curry had signed a bargain bin contract extension 4 years ago (4/44m), the Warriors had enough cap space to sign Kevin Durant in free agency after offloading Andrew Bogut. And because of Bird's Rights, they were able to sign Steph and Klay to max extensions and Draymond to a near max extension, which basically meant the Warriors had 4 max contract slots vs the 3 max slots that everyone else had. And when Kevin Durant left in free agency to go to Brooklyn, it was via sign-and-trade to get D'Angelo Russell. DLo got a max contract as it was needed to salary match, and this allowed the Warriors to keep that max slot. This max slot was then preserved when DLo was traded for Andrew Wiggins who was on his rookie max extension, and he ended up being their 2nd best player in the 2022 Finals. Eventually, the Warriors opened up another near max slot with Jordan Poole's extension, which was then preserved via the CP3 trade. And finally with CP3 and Klay leaving, the Warriors lose their two max slots, and the error from the summer of 2016 is finally over. One could easily argue that the NBAPA was the biggest proponent in extending the Warriors dynasty as if they had agreed to smooth the cap, KD would have never joined the Warriors.