As expected, hyphy superstar Ronny Turiaf signed an offer sheet with the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. The deal is being reported as $17 million over four years, and through the San Francisco Chronicle Turiaf's agent Mark Bartelstein indicates the contract is slight front-loaded ... which makes it tough to match for the Lakers.

Mitch Kupchak has seven days to make a decision whether to match. The Lakers are over the expected luxury tax threshold next season, so there's the whole 'dollar-for-dollar' penalty which would cost L.A. an extra $5 million in penalties in addition to Turiaf's salary. It's simplistic to equate this to "Turiaf costs the Lakers $10 million a year" -- Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom are more the reason for the tax payments than Turiaf and his (relatively) low-dollar brethren.

But Camp Turiaf might prefer L.A. takes the grumpy view of the tax implications. Bartelstein gives every indication that his dude would rather play in Golden State.

"He's got nothing but warm feelings for the Lakers, but the reality is that they have an overabundance of big guys," Bartelstein said. "Ronny wants to play and wants to find out how good a player he can be. I think the opportunity is much greater with the Warriors."

Officially, the only big man with NBA starts under his belt the Warriors have signed under contract is Al Harrington. Golden State's expected to bring restricted free agent Andris Biedrins back, and Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph wait in the wings. I'm not sure there's exactly a dearth of bigs in Golden State (who plays Stephen Jackson at the four half the time anyway), there's just a dearth of good ones.