Steph Curry Makes Pledge to Warriors After Klay Thompson’s Exit

Getty Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors and Draymond Green #23.

The Golden State Warriors lost Klay Thompson in free agency this summer, but they’re never going to lose Stephen Curry — or, at least, probably not.

That was the message Curry sent to the Bay Area and Dubs fans everywhere during an interview with Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports on Sunday, July 7, while training for the Olympics with Team USA in Las Vegas.

“I can clearly say I want to be a Warrior for life. That’s always been my goal,” Curry said. “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. The league has changed quickly, so we’re trying to adapt and evolve. I’ll let everybody know if that changes, but right now, of course, the goal [will] always be to finish my career with one team.”

Stephen Curry Admits to Raw Emotion That Accompanied News of Klay Thompson’s Departure From Warriors

GettyStephen Curry (left) of the Golden State Warriors and former teammate Klay Thompson (right).

Curry is partaking in the media rounds ahead of Team USA’s trek to Paris and potentially a gold medal in men’s basketball and nearly every time he sits down with a reporter, the topic of Thompson inevitably comes up.

Such was the case when Curry joined Steve Kerr, both the head coach of the Warriors and the head coach of the U.S. Olympic Basketball Team this summer, for an interview with Malika Andrews of ESPN.

“Man, we talked about it a lot, the journey we’ve been on,” Curry said. “We would have loved to maintain the core and finish out together. But we obviously understand the league and things change. Having Klay head on to Dallas, it’s tough. It’s something I never imagined would be a reality. But you want him to be happy, you want him to enjoy the game of basketball. It does suck losing Klay, there’s no two ways around it. But we have to be able to celebrate what we accomplished, and then we’ve got to move on.”

Curry and Thompson played together for the entirety of the latter’s 13-year career to this point, calling Golden State home for all of those seasons. Together they earned six trips to the NBA Finals, as well as four championship rings.

Warriors Signed De’Anthony Melton, Buddy Hield This Summer to Replace Klay Thompson

GettyDe’Anthony Melton, formerly of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Replacing Thompson in the Warriors’ lineup may not be a one-man job.

The Dubs acknowledged as much by making two significant backcourt additions following Thompson’s decision to pull up stakes for the defending Western Conference Champion Mavericks. The franchise inked De’Anthony Melton and Buddy Hield, both most recently of the Philadelphia 76ers, to join Curry and second-year player Brandin Podziemski in the rotation.

Melton is a high-level defender who averaged 11.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.6 steals last season with the Sixers, per Basketball Reference. He also shot 37.9% from behind the 3-point line on 5.4 attempts per contest across two years in Philly (115 games).

Hield, meanwhile, is an offensive specialist with the same top skill as Thompson — shooting lights out from 3-point range. Over his eight-year career, Hield has averaged 15.5 points per game, a figure buoyed significantly by shooting at a 40.0% clip from deep on 7.6 attempts per game.