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Let’s toss away all other presumptions and acknowledge that Stephen Curry is the most powerful person in the Warriors’ franchise — not because he demands it but because there’s simply nobody else who should be.
And let’s stand back and take in Curry’s words from his exit interview Thursday at Chase Center, about 15 hours after the Warriors were eliminated by the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 5 of the second round — while Curry was out with a hamstring injury, and Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler weren’t enough to buy him a few more days to come back for Game 6.
“All we wanted was a chance, and to finish the year like we did, to sneak in the playoffs and win that first round [over Houston], there’s a lot to be proud of for sure, considering where we were,” Curry said. “But definitely disappointed and frankly just sad that I wasn’t out there able to play. We have hopefully a bright future in terms of coming back next year and trying again.”
That was the general and proper part of Curry’s discourse. He and his teammates credited the Timberwolves for the series victory but couldn’t hide their frustration and pain knowing that losing Curry in Game 1 meant losing a real chance at doing some major things this postseason.
The Warriors were reborn when they traded for Butler in February, but they raced into the playoffs with an imperfect roster, and they knew it. Curry, Butler, and Green were a scary trio this season, and with a few specific acquisitions and more time to bond, they can be even better in 2025-26. The whole team can be better.
That’s what Curry sees. And what he sees is what guides the Warriors — even at 37 and understanding that he doesn’t have many of these kinds of seasons left. Especially understanding all of that.
And that’s what produced the interesting part of what Curry said Thursday when asked about the mood going into this offseason compared with the more antic approaches in past years.
“There’s a little bit more clarity on what we have — Jimmy being a big part of that,” Curry said. “There are obviously guys in this league if for whatever reason become available, every team is going to call. That’s just how it works, whether stuff happens or not. More times than not, it doesn’t.
“But we have clarity on what we have in terms of our core and experience, but we do know we need to probably get a little bit bigger across the board. We struggle shooting at times. Those can be addressed, but how you get to that I think is what Mike [Dunleavy] is going to have to figure out. We’ve got confidence that he can do it.”
The Warriors can get taller — maybe with a versatile center and maybe a lanky wing to fit between Curry and Butler, help defend some of the tougher perimeter scorers, and sync with Steve Kerr’s system. They can get more shooters — because the Warriors just about ran out of them once Curry went down.
They can get incrementally better, and they don’t have to make wholesale changes, because the Warriors are close. They are not young, and this won’t last too much longer, but they are closer to true contention now than they were two years ago, last year, and definitely three months ago.
“I think the biggest change that needed to be made was we needed someone like Jimmy Butler, and we made that change,” Green said. “I think the hardest part is done.”
You want some names for possible targeted acquisitions? There’s Brook Lopez, a veteran, winning stretch-5 who may or may not fit with what the Bucks are doing anymore. There’s Duncan Robinson, a pure shooter who worked well with Butler in Miami recently. There’s De’Anthony Melton, who was a popular member of the Warriors this season until he tore his ACL and was traded for Dennis Schroder (who was eventually put into the Butler deal).
These are the kinds of players who can help carry the Warriors through stretches in the regular season when Curry, Butler, and Green take some games off. These are the kinds of players who can make sure the team avoids bleak spells like the one that temporarily dropped the Warriors to the Western Conference’s 11th slot this season — before Butler’s arrival. They’re not stars. They probably shouldn’t be too expensive. But they could fit just right.
“We’ve always spoke about there being 82-game (regular-season) players and 16-game [postseason] players,” Green said. “At some point for us, we have to take a look at both because, ideally, you don’t want to be from Feb. 8 [when Butler arrived] on scrapping and clawing for every win that you could possibly get. That takes a toll after a while. For us, we’ve kind of been in playoff mode for the last three months. It’s not a highly effective way to win a championship.”
How will the Warriors, already over the cap line for next season, with about $170 million in commitments, be able to make acquisitions? They can figure out a sign-and-trade deal with Jonathan Kuminga, who is hitting restricted free agency and probably will be better off with a fresh start elsewhere.
Kuminga is only 22 and increased his value with his performance in an emergency role in the Minnesota series. But the Warriors won’t want to pay him anything close to his potential market rate of $25 million to $30 million a year when they’re already so pot-committed to Curry, Green, Butler, and the style Kerr conjured after the Butler trade.
“I’m proud of the way he’s handled it,” Curry said of Kuminga’s yo-yoing in and out of the Warriors’ rotation over the last four years and through these playoffs. “I hope the future is bright for him, whether it’s here, whether it’s wherever, and knowing that he’s a guy in this league that can continue to climb that ladder on his own pace.”
The Warriors also can package a future first-round pick with Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Trayce Jackson-Davis, or Quentin Post. They can use cap exceptions. They are always willing to go deep into the luxury tax for the right deal and at the right time.
So the Warriors are not stuck. You get stuck if you’re overpaying players who don’t win games, and the Warriors are paying large money to three players who definitely have won them big games and almost certainly can do it in the near future. Curry knows this. The whole franchise knows this.
“Yeah, our contracts are all — me, Draymond, Steve, Jimmy, all two years — and we want this ride to last as long as possible,” Curry said.
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One point — Curry knows that Kerr’s tenure is locked up with the Curry era and presumably spoke as if Kerr’s contract is locked up that way, too. But an NBA source confirmed Thursday afternoon that Kerr’s contract lasts only one more season. That might just be a formality, though, because Curry has said he can’t imagine being coached by anybody else as long as he’s with the Warriors. And that sort of matters — that Curry says and believes it, and that he is winning with the Warriors forever, if possible.