When LeBron James recently said that Stephen Curry was the one active NBA player he would want to play with, the Golden State Warriors star replied with a simple “I’m good right now.” That, for the time being, appeared to be that. Curry and James have no obvious path to playing with one another in the near future, so the book appeared to be closed.
But Curry opened the door ever so slightly in an appearance on The Draymond Green Show. “Obviously there’s a curiosity,” Curry said when Green pressed. “Like what would that look like?” He went on to joke, “if this was 2K, that would be pretty lethal.”
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Barring something extremely unforeseen, Curry and James don’t have a path towards teaming up any time soon. Curry signed a long-term extension with Golden State last offseason. James can become a free agent in 2023 but is eligible for an extension this offseason as well. Even if he doesn’t sign it, James would have to take a significant pay cut to join the Warriors. He has earned the max every season since rejoining the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014. The most the capped out Warriors could offer him would be the taxpayer mid-level exception.
Even if James follows his son, Bronny, to whatever team drafts him, the Warriors don’t have their first-round pick in 2024, the year the younger James is on track to become draft-eligible. In other words, with time running out on LeBron’s career, the two almost certainly won’t get the chance to play together.
But they’ve faced off in the NBA Finals four times and are perhaps the two best players of this era of NBA history. It’s perfectly natural for them to wonder what they’d be capable of together. Sadly, it’s just not a partnership we’re ever likely to see.
