As we mentioned earlier, the Warriors and Stephen Curry came to terms on a contract extension worth $44 million over four years.
The deal seems like a better one for Curry than it does for the Warriors on the surface, as the team is betting all that money that Curry’s ankle problems are a thing of the past, and that he can once again be a productive player who missed only 10 games combined over his first two NBA seasons.
Before Wednesday night’s season opener against the Suns in Phoenix, Warriors GM Bob Myers met with the media to discuss the reasons he and the organization weren’t concerned about the injury risk, and felt good about locking up Curry at that price.
“Time will tell, but we felt like obviously we put $44 million dollars on the table (to show) that we believe in him,” Myers said. “It’s a big belief in his health; you can bet against it or you can bet on it, and we decided to bet on it.
“We looked at all the information, we watched him play in the preseason, we watched him practice the last four or five days. I’m well-acquainted with his surgeon, I’ve known him for probably 10 years. With all the information we had, we felt like it was a prudent decision — not knowing what he would have commanded (on the free agent market), and that was certainly part of the process, as in, what would he have gotten if he would have played out this season? And even in some respects, whether he was healthy or not. We’ve seen some players in free agency get some pretty big numbers.”
Knowing what they were getting without entering a bidding war — and without letting other teams set a potentially artificial market value on Curry was certainly another reason the Warriors were so interested in making the extension happen.
“Our group thought about, what are the alternatives to not doing this,” Myers said. “Well, there’s a couple. He could become a restricted free agent, and get offered a contract of similar or higher value. He could become a restricted free agent, and we’d choose to go in another direction. We’d have to replace the position, and that’s a hard thing to do with what amount of money we would have had.
“If you look at it on a global level, our options, it wasn’t like if we didn’t do this we’d have the max space to go out and get another guy. We’re thrilled we got the deal done, because we really like him. We really believe in him, and what this does is give us cost certainty in a league that is very uncertain.”
Myers continued down the path of certainty versus uncertainty, making it clear that whatever risks were involved in the investment in Curry, he was more comfortable there than he was with having to deal with the restricted free agent process.”
“The thing to understand about restricted free agency is, when a player enters restricted free agency and receives an offer sheet — and we’ll never know, thankfully, whether [Curry] would have or wouldn’t have — but when a team makes an offer, they have to pay a premium,” Myers said. “They pay beyond market value, and the reason being is, they have to set a bar they think that the team with the right to match won’t commit to. So even if you value a player at 12 (million), you’re not going to offer 12 — you’re going to offer 13 or 14. And you saw that in restricted free agency. So to protect against that, to commit to a player we really like for this organization, we made the deal we did and we’re happy with it.”
Warriors head coach Mark Jackson seemed just as happy about the team’s decision.
“I’m very excited about it, thrilled really,” Jackson said. “You have to at some point bet on somebody and I think it was a great decision by this organization betting on a guy with high character who comes from a good background and wants to be great. He does everything the right way; those are the guys that you want to ultimately bet on. It’s great for me because it’s especially enjoyable watching the good guys win.”
