Stephen Curry deserves a raise. The two-time defending NBA MVP will make $12.1 million next season, in a league where the maximum salary is more than double that. The Warriors alone could have four players making more than Curry next season. He told Sporting News last summer that he did not want to deal with free agency, and locking him up now would accomplish that.
Curry can get a raise, too. Bill Simmons talked about that possibility on his podcast recently, and the idea seems easy enough. However, renegotiating contracts does not happen very often in the NBA, unlike other major sports, and Curry’s example shows why. It would be incredibly impractical for the Warriors and financially constraining for Curry to sign an extension this offseason, unless the Warriors somehow are worried Curry might leave as a free agent next year.
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Only certain types of contracts can be renegotiated and extended under current NBA rules. A player must be entering the fourth or fifth year of his current contract, as was the case most recently with the Nuggets’ Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler last summer. That fits for Curry, whose four-year, $44 million current deal kicked in for 2013-14 after being signed in 2012 — when he was coming off worrisome ankle injuries.
Yet there are two major reasons for the Warriors not to give him that raise.
1. Any raise Curry gets on his 2016-17 salary would need to come from cap space. The Warriors do have salary cap flexibility — enough, even to add Kevin Durant — doing so would be incredibly costly in luxury tax. That probably is fine when adding a player of Durant’s talent (assuming owner Joe Lacob signs off), but giving Curry a pay bump does not make the team better. It could make the team worse. At a $92 million NBA salary cap (the exact figure is not known yet), his maximum would be about $25.9 million, so the Warriors would need about $14 million in cap space to make it happen.
2. Curry’s new contract would not run nearly as long as if he waits one year for free agency. A renegotiated extension can only be for a maximum of four seasons, and the renegotiated season counts, so a Curry contract this summer would go through the 2019-20 season while a five-year contract as a free agent next summer could give him security until 2021-22. Waiting also likely gives Curry a higher salary per season since the cap will rise again next year — especially if, as expected, the value of maximum contracts is increased in the 2017 labor renegotiations.
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Golden State would have to sacrifice serious talent in a season where they will have justifiably high expectations. Despite the rapidly rising salary cap and the fact that Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli have low cap holds, the Warriors are unlikely to function as a below the cap team this summer unless someone worth it makes a commitment. Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut, Andre Iguodala and Curry combine to make $66 million, and that does not include team-friendly contracts for Shaun Livingston and Kevon Looney or $976,300 owed to Jason Thompson that has to stick on the salary cap because he had guaranteed money for next season.
The least harmful way to clear enough space to renegotiate and extend Curry this summer would involve saying goodbye to either Barnes or both Livingston and Ezeli. As we have seen in these playoffs, the Warriors rely on that depth and would be hamstrung without those players. They also would also lose the ability to add depth with their trade exceptions and the mid-level exception.
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Giving Curry a raise now has the feel of good old workplace values. He clearly is bringing in much more revenue than he was expected to make the company. However, making that happen would be so harmful to the Warriors’ chances of competing for a championship that the team should be reluctant to do it without a good reason. Curry has sold himself as a winner above all else. He will not damage his roster out of impatience, especially when he can make out better by waiting.
So the best player in the NBA will continue on the best contract in the NBA for another season.