What A Stephen Curry Pay Cut Could Help The Golden State Warriors Pull Off

On Tuesday, Kawhi Leonard agreed to a two-year, $115 million extension with the Toronto Raptors that was roughly $11 million less than the maximum amount he could have received, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. One day later, Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry signaled he may be willing to follow in Leonard’s footsteps.

Curry has been eligible to sign a two-year, $136.7 million extension since Aug. 29, but he still has yet to put pen to paper. According to ESPN’s Anthony Slater, the Warriors “immediately presented him with a menu of options, team sources said, including max money, slightly smaller pay cuts or the ability to wait and decide later, depending on what the front office could eventually generate with extra flexibility.”

The last option would arguably be Curry’s best chance of maximizing his final act with the Warriors. They could be poised to make a major splash next offseason thanks to the structure of their salary-cap sheet, but a Curry extension would slash their projected spending power.

Curry appears to be aware of that, too.

“We’re in a very interesting situation,” he told Slater on Wednesday. “All the different salary-cap conditions of whether I sign for a max or less or whatever it is, I want to be on a competitive team. I want to have an opportunity to have some flexibility because we haven’t had that in years past, the recent past.

“… This team should have flexibility to make necessary moves if things happen. Those are always just the considerations. For me, information and patience is key. It’s just a very unique situation all the way around based on where we’ve been the last four years, where I’m at in my career, what our team looks like this year and the absolute desperation to win. Trying to balance all that.”

As of now, the Warriors’ books are largely barren beyond this coming season. Moses Moody ($13.4 million), Yaxel Lendeborg ($6.4 million), Gui Santos ($5.0 million) and Will Richard ($2.5 million) are the only four Warriors players on guaranteed contracts in 2027-28 at the moment.

Al Horford ($7.2 million) and De’Anthony Melton ($6.4 million) each have player options in 2027-28, which could further cut into the Warriors’ financial flexibility. Kristaps Porziņģis also has a $20 million mutual option—if he picks up his player option, only $3 million of his contract will be guaranteed until July 7. But all three of Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green are on expiring contracts, which means the Warriors have more than $147 million coming off their books after this season.

For now, including Porziņģis’ $3 million of guaranteed salary, the Warriors only have $30.35 million in salary on their books for 2027-28. Even if Horford and Melton pick up their respective player options, the Warriors would only be at $43.9 million. The NBA recently issued an updated salary-cap projection of $176 million for the 2027-28 season, according to Fred Katz and John Hollinger of The Athletic.

That doesn’t mean the Warriors will enter next summer with $130 million in cap space, though. They’ll also have to account for the cap holds of Curry ($65.7 million), Butler ($65.5 million), Green ($41.5 million) and Brandin Podziemski ($17.0 million), assuming they don’t sign Podziemski to an extension by the late-October deadline for rookie-scale deals.

From an order-of-operations perspective, the Warriors will have to re-sign Curry first before spending the rest of their cap space, particularly if he agrees to take a below-max deal. To have $50-plus million of spending power, they’d then have to renounce their rights to Butler and/or Green, which means they’d have to re-sign them either using cap space or a salary-cap exception.

Who the Warriors target in free agency from there could determine on how much money Curry is willing to give up.

For now, the 2027 free-agent class looks loaded. Even if Giannis Antetokounmpo signs an extension with the Miami Heat (as expected) and never hits the market, a number of All-Star-caliber players could be up for grabs.

The crown jewel is Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić, who does not plan on signing an extension this year. The Nuggets “understand Jokić’s delayed timeline to be financially motivated,” according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, as he stands to make an additional $80-plus million by waiting. But if the Nuggets stumble this coming season, it’s fair to wonder whether Jokić could develop wandering eyes.

He isn’t the only star who could be on the move, either. On Wednesday, Charania reported extension negotiations between Karl-Anthony Towns and the New York Knicks “have stagnated,” in part because team owner James Dolan refuses to cross into the second apron. Towns could become an unrestricted free agent next summer by turning down his $61.0 million player option for the 2027-28 season.

Anthony Davis ($62.8 million), Paul George ($56.6 million), Kevin Durant ($46.1 million), Brandon Ingram ($41.9 million), Kyrie Irving ($42.4 million), Rudy Gobert ($38.0 million) and Jrue Holiday ($37.2 million) each also have player options for 2027-28 that they could turn down to become unrestricted free agents. Meanwhile, Michael Porter Jr., Tyler Herro, RJ Barrett and Cam Johnson are all heading into the final year of their respective contracts and are set to become UFAs if they don’t sign extensions this year.

The Warriors wouldn’t necessarily have to spend their cap space on a star free agent, either. Teams have increasingly made financially motivated trades in recent years due to second-apron concerns. This offseason alone, the Oklahoma City Thunder salary-dumped Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe and Lu Dort for a handful of second-round picks. The Warriors could always look to round out their roster by taking advantage of a team with an unsustainable roster cost. (Could they pry Paolo Banchero or Franz Wagner away from Orlando, perhaps?)

If the Warriors renounce their free-agent rights to everyone other than Podziemski next offseason, they could enter free agency with upwards of $110 million in spending power. They’d need to spend a hefty chunk of that on Curry, but his willingness to take a below-max deal would determine what else they could accomplish.

That’s why it would make sense for Curry to wait to re-sign with the Warriors until next summer. If he signs an extension at any point this season, that will impact how much cap space the Warriors could create ahead of free agency. If he holds off, he can see what the Warriors are able to pull off next offseason and just take however much money is left over.

That might sound like a pipe dream, but James Harden did that exact thing with the Cleveland Cavaliers this past offseason. He held off signing his new deal for nearly two months after free agency began to afford the Cavs the flexibility to explore roster upgrades. They wound up using that to acquire Peyton Watson in a sign-and-trade from the Nuggets.

Curry made clear to Slater that he has no desire to leave the Warriors and plans to retire there. The Warriors might be more eager to lock Curry up on a new deal—even if it’s a full max extension—if he was potentially eyeing an exit. But if he’s on board with taking a below-max deal, it would behoove all parties to push that off until next summer. Allowing the Warriors to maximize their financial flexibility would give Curry his best chance of satisfying his desire to be on a competitive team moving forward.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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This article was originally published on Forbes.com