On its surface, the contract issue that the Golden State Warriors are looking at when it comes to 38-year-old star guard Stephen Curry is pretty simple. Curry is the best player in franchise history, the guy who led the team to four NBA championships and rewrote the layout of the game as we know it. So, you pay him the maximum amount you can, even at an advanced age, when you can do it.
The Warriors can give Curry an extension heading into this year, when he will be on a $62 million expiring deal. In total, they can offer two years and $137 million and, no doubt, that number is on the table for Curry. But there is a complicating factor–Curry can wait on taking a new deal from the Warriors, and if he waits until next summer, Golden State could have more than $100 million in cap space to spend or to take in players via trade.
So, yes, the Curry deal could be simple. Or he could wait, and make it much more interesting.
Stephen Curry Dealing With ‘New Normal’
But there is another factor for both the Warriors and Curry: Last season was worrisome for the Dubs star, because of a persistent knee injury that crept in about halfway through his season and wound up costing him all of February and March and limited him to four games in April.
ESPN’s Anthony Slater, who covers the Warriors, pointed out that Curry’s knee issue must figure into extension decisions.
Speaking on “The Hoops Collective” podcast, Slater said: “The other thing that needs to get discussed with 38-year-old Stephen Curry is he is coming off a concerning physical season. He had, he got a knee injury that was like, an overuse—I mean, runner’s knee was the term. It limited him to 43 games played. I mean, go to his April 4 press conference where he—you know, Steph has always been pretty dang transparent with himself, physically, with the public about his ankle injuries back in the day. And the new normal he’s going through with his knee.”
Warriors Were Taken By Surprise With Injury
Slater pointed out that the Warriors, who have one of the best training staffs in the league, seemed taken aback by the persistence of Curry’s knee problem. And the Warriors had been a pretty good team, at 26-19, when Jimmy Butler tore his ACL in mid-January and Curry hurt the knee in late January. As injuries took hold, the Warriors closed 11-26.
Said Slater: “He had a workout in late January. After the workout, his knee swelled up and they ended up playing him like two out of the next five games and sitting him. And right before the break, they were like, let’s sit you for a week and the knee should be fine after about a week. That was the expectation.”
Warriors Need to Consider Knee in How They Approach Stephen Curry Contract
Indeed, when fans and even many in the national media, look at the future of the Warriors and how they approach the end seasons of Curry’s career, they don’t take the potential for a lingering knee injury into account. Curry has called it his “new normal” and if that is going to be the case, the Warriors will really need to have another star on board to have a chance to compete.
Again from Slater: “It was just this stop, start, stop, start. He ends up missing two-something months and again, like I said, he used the term new normal with his knee. So as we talk about this and do you lock in the money, and what is the future of 38, 39, 40-year-old Stephen Curry look like? He is coming off a season where his knee betrayed him and that’s pretty relevant.”
Warriors Weigh Stephen Curry ‘Concerning Physical’ Issue Amid Contract Talk