Stephen Curry made headlines earlier in the week when he said the Golden State Warriors should not mortgage the future on a desperate win-now trade. Read between the lines of what he said — echoing comments by Draymond Green and Steve Kerr — and it’s “Don’t trade four guys for Jimmy Butler. Don’t give up a bunch of players and picks get Zach LaVine.” Curry’s right. Those guys don’t change the Warriors fortunes for the positive, neither does anyone we know to be available. Wait for the right deal(s).
Of course, that’s not how a segment of the NBA’s online fan base took it. There was a lot of clickbaity “Curry, Warriors wave white flag” headlines and posts after those comments. After the Warriors win over Minnesota Wednesday, Curry fired back (via NBC Sports Bay Area). First were his remarks in a postgame interview on ESPN’s SportsCenter:
“The 24-hour news cycle is hilarious at times. Nobody is complacent here. Nobody is okay with just being average. All the Twitter fingers who got deals that we need to make can kind of shut up and let us figure this out. We know we can be competitive. We showed that toughness tonight. Obviously, every team is trying to find ways to get better. For us, we’ve been great for a very long time. This is just a unique year when we have to stay relevant and give ourselves a chance and just have some life in a playoff series. We have a whole lot of confidence that we can beat anybody.”
When Curry spoke to reporters a little while later, he echoed the same theme.
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” Anybody that thinks I’m OK with just being on an average basketball team is insane. Take whatever I said — I still stand on it — but that doesn’t mean you’re not in a situation where you’re trying to get better and make appropriate moves that help you do that. [Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy] knows that. We’ve talked about it. That’s the expectation from me trying to help lead the team where we want to go.”
Good on Curry for pushing back.
Any trades the Warriors make at the deadline are going to be around the margins, likely leaving an inconsistent Warriors team fighting for one of the bottom few playoff spots in the West. That said, the organization wants to win again with Stephen Curry and will be looking to take some home run swings this summer.
