After years of being a loyal steward of the Golden State Warriors, Steph Curry is slowly opening the door for leaving.
Curry has reiterated he wants to be a Warrior for life for years, and he did so again in a story published Wednesday by Andscape. But when reporter Marc Spears asked Curry about the “lackluster” teams that other one-team Hall of Famers Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki played on at the end of their careers, Curry affirmed that he wouldn’t stand for losing.
“I want to win,” Curry said, according to Andscape, in an interview on July 8. “Let’s put it this way, it’s a longwinded way of saying that if it is a situation where you’re a bottom feeder and it’s just because you want to stay there, I’d have a hard time with that. But I don’t think that’s going to be the reality.”
Curry couched the whole thing with a big caveat, saying of playing for only one team: “At this stage in my career, I feel that’s possible.”
Still, the 36-year-old is applying public pressure to the Dubs front office in a way we haven’t seen before. After reportedly viewing his fellow four-time champions Klay Thompson and Draymond Green as a “package deal,” according to a 2022 story from the Athletic, Curry told Spears he isn’t sure how the Warriors will look this year now that Thompson left to join the Mavericks.
He also admitted, “It’s hard to envision all the change that’s happened.”
“You have to make the necessary adjustments and evolve how we play to maximize the team that we have,” Curry said. “I have an optimistic attitude that it’s going to work and that we are going to be a competitor, be in the mix until proven otherwise. That’s the only way I can think right now.”
It aligns with what Curry told Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports earlier this month at USA Basketball practices in Las Vegas. Curry once again restated his Warrior-for-life goal, but began to openly ponder other options.
“I mean, I can clearly say I want to be a Warrior for life,” Curry said, in an interview July 7 in Las Vegas. “It’s always been my goal, and I’m saying that sitting in this chair right now, but like you said, life, and especially life in the NBA, it is a wild environment, and things change quickly.”
Curry later added, “I want to be in the best position to make that [winning] happen, [it] doesn’t guarantee anything, but until that changes, and I feel that energy changes, then I go about my business the same way, and that’s where I’m at. Things change quickly, and the league has changed quickly, so we’re trying to adapt and evolve. And until [then] … I’ll let everybody know if that changes.”
Curry made those comments nearly half a month ago, and he talked to Spears the next day with similar thoughts. He’s got two years left on his contract. How he views the ongoing discussion surrounding the potential trade for Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen isn’t known — but given how hard he reportedly pushed for a Paul George trade, Curry seems likely to welcome anything that improves the roster.