Stephen Curry isn't thinking about leaving the Warriors in 2017, for now
Life is good for Stephen Curry, reigning NBA MVP and champion as point guard of the Golden State Warriors. He is widely identified as one of the best players in the league, has popularity that perhaps only three players can match, and at 27 years old looks set to occupy that space for some time. Stalking aside, it's hard to see many downsides.
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It should therefore not come as much of a surprise that Curry sees little reason to leave the Warriors when he becomes a free agent in the summer of 2017. From Jimmy Spencer for The Sporting News:
“As I am thinking right now, free agency isn’t really appealing to me because I love where I’m at, love the organization I’m playing for, and the Bay Area is home for me and my family,” Curry said. [...]
“It helps being world champs and you want to continue to build the momentum that we’ve established and I hope to have a huge part of that in the long term,” Curry said in an interview at a golf event to promote Degree Men. “But I think the best approach for me is to try and stay as in the moment as possible.
“Everybody in this league is going to have many decisions to make, and you’ll be in a lot of different situations throughout your career, so in order to enjoy the ride, you kind of have to not get too ahead of yourself and just stay in the moment.”
Curry has gone on the record before that he and his family love living in the Bay Area. Those close to the 27-year-old have also said he plans to make it his home long term.
The Warriors will certainly make every effort to give Curry a new contract before he has a chance to enter free agency, and that could be for the full five-year max, which would be more than $30 million a year by 2017.
Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group has estimated Curry's max-level deal at $172.5 million over five years a huge raise over his current contract but a fair rate for an MVP who has already produced enough to justify the full four-year, $44-million extension he signed in October 2012. Curry could see a recurrence of his ankle injuries and miss months of the next two seasons and still earn that max-level deal, just as Derrick Rose remains a superstar-type figure with the Chicago Bulls despite having lost so many games to his knee injuries.
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It's perhaps more interesting to wonder what would have to happen for Curry to take a half-dozen free-agent meetings and strongly consider leaving the Bay Area. Would the Warriors have to crash into fringe playoff contender status, exposing last season as an outlier and throwing the future into question? Is that even possible if Curry doesn't get hurt? Or would Curry, the closest thing the league has to a golden boy right now, have to see such a backlash that even Warriors fans would turn on him?
Each of these scenarios seems unlikely, but they at least inject some uncertainty into a situation that seems very clear. The smart money will continue to be on Curry staying with the Warriors for the most money possible, because both sides benefit and their relationship has shown no signs of fraying. But two years can be an eternity on the NBA calendar, and it would be smart not to assume a resolution that's now so far into the future.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
