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Things are much different for the Golden State Warriors and Stephen Curry entering the 2024-25 NBA season. Although Curry's focus is on the upcoming Olympics and seizing what is very likely his last opportunity to win a gold medal, the future of the Warriors' superstar has once again become a key talking point around the league in the wake of Klay Thompson departing San Francisco.
Curry, Thompson, and Draymond Green will forever go down as one of the best trios in NBA history due to the number of games they won together. However, it was the way these three revolutionized and changed the league that will forever live on in the minds of basketball fans. The four championships that they won together in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022 are all legacy-cementing achievements that these three solidified with the Warriors.
Thompson will not be taking the floor with Curry and Green to begin the 2024-25 season after signing a contract with the Dallas Mavericks in free agency, which is why the Warriors have suddenly shifted the trajectory of their franchise. Curry and Green still remain, but is the greatest shooting the NBA has ever seen beginning to sense a divide between the new front office and the team itself?
When you think of the Warriors, you think of Steph Curry. There would be no Warriors as we know them or a golden dynasty over the last decade without him. Curry will forever be a Bay Area legend, yet he still believes there is one thing left to accomplish at this point in his career, and it pertains to loyalty.
“I mean, I can clearly say I want to be a Warrior for life,” Curry told Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports at Team USA training camp 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.”
As Curry alluded to, the NBA landscape is always changing. Between players opting for change and teams looking to take things in a new direction, pieces are always moving around the league like a game of chess. Curry recognizes the business aspect of the league, and he also understands it is not his place to interfere with the decision-making process of the organization.
Unlike LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who are two players that have clearly held an influence on their teams through the years regarding the pursuit of certain players and talents, Curry leaves all the decisions the Warriors make up to the front office without giving his input unless they ask him for it.
“It's like this thing of, ‘Oh, does Steph want that? Or does Steph talk to the organization?' Like, if you know basketball, you know how this works, like, I know what's going on,” Curry continued. “I know all the ramifications of every decision. You know I'm not making the decisions. But you know, you want that collaborative kind of approach.”
Curry wants to win with Warriors
With Thompson gone, the Warriors are going to look very different next season. Still, this team maintains their championship aspirations, even if they didn't make the playoffs after losing in the play-in tournament to the Sacramento Kings.
After all, the Warriors were ousted from the play-in tournament in 2021 before they went on to win the 2022 NBA Finals. Perhaps missing the playoffs for the second time in the last four seasons was the wake-up call that the Warriors needed.
So far this offseason, general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. has done a really nice job at replacing Thompson's production on the perimeter with Buddy Hield and De'Anthony Melton. He also addressed the need for more depth by signing Kyle Anderson and trading for Lindy Waters II from the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Curry, Green, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga, and veteran big man Kevon Looney remain after all the changes this roster has gone through.
“I always want to win, plain and simple,” Curry told Goodwill. “And there's no contentment on just cashing a check and playing basketball and riding it out. Pressure is applied on, like, I want to win.”
The Warriors appear committed to winning, and Curry is still locked in despite turning 36 years old this past March. It doesn't appear as if Curry is slowing down anytime soon, and he remains committed to the Warriors until he is ready to call it quits on what is already a first-ballot Hall-of-Fame-worthy career.
