Stephen Curry is not getting any younger. The NBA's all-time leader in 3-pointers is now 37 years old and continues to inch closer to the end of his illustrious career, but the Golden State Warriors superstar still has plenty left in the tank.
Curry is off to a great start in his 17th NBA season with the Warriors, and his 27.1 points per game average is his highest since averaging 29.4 points per game during the 2022-23 season. For many of the greatest players of all time, age is just a number, and Curry is yet another example of this.
For now, the Warriors' plan is simple: compete for more championships so long as Curry is playing.
Golden State has won four championships since 2015, and no other team in the league has won more than one title during this span. This has been the golden era of basketball, as people in San Francisco like to say, and Warriors owner Joe Lacob isn't done just yet.
When Lacob and Peter Guber bought the team in 2010, they made a promise to bring multiple championships back to the Bay Area. Curry, Draymond Green, and the other stars to play for this team through the years delivered on Lacob's promise, but this chapter in Warriors' lore is still being written.
Lacob, who has been on this journey with Curry through the years, recognizes that the organization's window with one of the greatest players in NBA history is closing. However, the owner likes to think his star can be to the NBA what Tom Brady was to the NFL for over two decades.
“It’s going to be really, really hard to do this without a Steph Curry or someone like that in the future,” Lacob told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He’s not going to play forever, though I do think he may play longer than we all think. He might be the Tom Brady of the NBA. …”
“I look forward to it in a way probably no one else can understand, because it will be a tremendous challenge to try to replicate what we’ve done in the first 15 years over the next 15. But I’m looking forward to that, because it’s something we want to try to do — to prove we do a good job and it’s not just Steph Curry.”
Few players have achieved what Curry has with the Warriors. In fact, he is four seasons away from tying Dirk Nowitzki's record of 21 NBA seasons with the same team, as Dirk spent his entire career as the face of the Dallas Mavericks.
Curry will never leave the Warriors, and he will forever go down as the face of the Warriors franchise when he ultimately retires.
But that moment is still a ways away, as Steph continues to focus on winning his fifth championship ring, which would put him in elite company with only 20 other players in league history to ever win at least five championships with the same organization.
Despite being older, Curry remains the same player he was when the Warriors went on their first championship run during the 2014-15 season. Age is just a number to Steph and the Warriors, as the goal of winning another title remains constant, just like Brady's goal at the end of his NFL career.
As for what the Warriors' future plans are once Curry retires, Lacob will have something up his sleeve when the time comes.
“Develop or bring in — whatever it takes, we will figure it out. I guarantee you that.”
