As Stephen Curry sets to begin pursuit of his first Olympic gold medal on Saturday, he knows his basketball life is going to look very different when he returns from Paris and refocuses his attention and energy on his day job as the face of the Golden State Warriors.
When training camp kicks off in October, Curry, for the first time, will not be sharing a locker room with Klay Thompson, who left Golden State for the Mavericks this summer after 13 seasons alongside Curry. During that time, they grew into the greatest shooting backcourt in history and, quite possibly, the best backcourt to ever play together, period.
Until Thompson decided to leave, there was this idea out there that Golden State’s Big 3 (Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green, all of whom were drafted by the Warriors) could ride off into the sunset together, but now that the first piece of the dynastic puzzle has broken off, a bigger question at least feels worth asking.
Will Curry finish his career with the Warriors?
In a recent interview with Andscape’s Marc Spears, Curry was asked, in effect, that exact question. Here was Spears’ question and Curry”s response in the Q&A format:
You saw the type of lackluster teams that Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki had at the end of their careers while staying for one team. Should we not assume that you’ll be fine playing with just anyone during the rest of your career playing solely for the Warriors?
It’s tough, right? I’ve always said I want to be a Warrior for life. At this stage in my career, I feel like that’s possible. And you can still be a competitive, it doesn’t mean you guaranteed the championship. It doesn’t mean winning. Winning is always a priority, but obviously you’re realistic. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen if you stay the course. You need to shake things up and keep reimagining what it looks like to evolve with what league is at right now, with where some of these talented teams are now.
I’m taking it one step at a time to be honest. I think that’s the only way that will protect my happiness. Also, it allows me to enjoy being myself when I’m out there playing. And I’ll continue to make the decisions that are best for me and for my career at the end of the day when it comes to just the imagination. I want to win. Let’s put it this way, it’s a longwinded way of saying that it 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.
This isn’t anything different the Curry has said before, except that last part about him not wanting to be on a bottom-feeder team. He says he doesn’t think the Warriors are going to put him in that position, and he’s probably right. If all he wants is a decently competitive team, he should have that for the foreseeable future in Golden State.
However, let’s look at the facts: The Warriors finished 10th in the Western Conference last season. One of the five teams that finished below them, the Memphis Grizzlies, have a legit roster with Ja Morant back on the court, and the Spurs are coming quickly with Victor Wembanyama.
Sure, the Warriors won 46 games last year, which is a far cry from a bottom feeder, but by the same token they don’t have to fall that far to suddenly find themselves, well, near the bottom of the conference. Which is a long way of saying that you never know. Curry, at the very least, is keeping the organization on its toes.
The Warriors are definitely trying to stay as competitive as possible. They had a quietly productive summer with the additions of De’Anthony Melton, Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson. They have two young players on a rapid rise in Jonathan Kuminga and Brandon Podziemski, and a third in Trayce Jackson-Davis who could, and likely will, play a vital role in the middle moving forward. If the Warriors can pull off a trade with Utah for Lauri Markkanen, they would arguably be back in at least fringe title contention.
But things happen. Things don’t always go as planned. And if the Warriors fall off the rails, which, again, might actually be closer to happening than it seems like, Curry is at least leaving open the possibility of finishing his career elsewhere.