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Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob had no qualms about Stephen Curry‘s latest comments about his future with the team — that he doesn’t want to play for a bottom feeder.
“All he said was exactly what you’d expect,” Lacob said on the “TK Show” with The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami, “which is I want to win and if we were a really bad team I guess he would rethink whether he really wanted to finish his career here but he didn’t expect that to be the case.
Lacob said he had many conversations with his franchise star about it and he believes Curry isn’t going anywhere.
“I think we have a great relationship. I think he’s very comfortable with the path of the franchise and how hard we try to put a great — as good a product on the court as we can,” Lacob said.
The Warriors have swung hard but missed on potential trades for a Curry co-star from LeBron James in the past trade deadline to Paul George before free agency opened.
They have also strongly pursued Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen but talks have since cooled off.
Steph Curry Wants to Be a Warrior for Life
The departure of Klay Thompson, a franchise icon and a pillar of the Warriors’ dynasty, has led to questions about the future of Curry.
“It’s tough, right? I’ve always said I want to be a Warrior for life,” Curry said in an interview with Andscape. “At this stage in my career, I feel like that’s possible. And you can still be 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.
The Warriors missed the playoffs last season for the first time with a healthy Curry since their first championship with him in 2015.
“I’m taking it one step at a time to be honest,” Curry continued. “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 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.”
Joe Lacob Believes Steph Curry’s Championship Window Is Still Open
Lacob believes they have gotten better with the acquisitions of Buddy Hield, Kyle Anderson and De’Anthony Melton after Thompson and Chris Paul‘s exit.
“I gotta be honest I don’t really think of that that way,” Lacob said about the narrative of not wasting Curry’s final years. “It matters to me every bit as much as it matters to our fans, for Steph. I don’t ever want to be not trying or be bad or be laissez-faire about trying to win. I hope people understand from the time we as a group bought this team 14 years ago, going on 15 now, we’ve tried to be competitive as much as we can.”
However, he added that it’s gotten harder to do that in the wake of the new, restrictive Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Yet they still swung hard and continue to do it, hoping they hit a home run deal to extend Curry’s championship window.
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Joe Lacob Responds to Warriors Star Steph Curry’s ‘Bottom Feeder’ Comment