Mike Dunleavy Jr. just told reporters he’d let Steph Curry walk if Curry ever asked him to, and nobody made him say it.
Earlier this month, a couple weeks before Golden State’s front office had any real reason to be discussing Curry’s future, the Golden State Warriors general manager volunteered a hypothetical nobody asked for: “if he comes to us and wants to be moved, you know, Joe and I will talk through it. We wouldn’t love it, but he’s earned the right,” Dunleavy told SI.com. He also said he’s “pretty confident Steph will finish his career here.”
Fine.
Neither half of that sentence required saying out loud, and only one of them made news.
Twenty-four hours later, Joe Lacob got asked a version of the same question and answered it like Dunleavy hadn’t spoken at all. Tim Kawakami asked the Warriors owner directly whether Curry had discussed playing anywhere else, and Lacob shut the whole premise down: “No. No. I don’t think this is even a thing. This is just a clickbait thing… I’ve never heard a word about that.”
That’s not a GM and an owner backing each other up. That’s a GM and an owner telling two different stories about the same player in the same week.
None of this is happening for no reason. Curry becomes eligible on Aug. 29 for a two-year, $136.7 million extension, and the extension-eligible window lands just weeks after his own front office couldn’t agree on whether a trade request is a live possibility or a media invention.
Curry hasn’t said a word about wanting out, and he’s the one member of this organization who’s actually been consistent. This also isn’t the first time speculation followed him around this summer — he already had to publicly bat down the last Curry trade rumor that wasn’t actually a report before this one showed up. On Aug. 5, he told reporters he’ll “figure it out in real time” and that he doesn’t want the team to “suck right now” either. That’s a guy trying to finish his career somewhere, not a guy building an exit plan.
The roster around him tells its own version of the story. Golden State swung and missed on LeBron James, Jaylen Brown and Anthony Davis this offseason, then re-signed Draymond Green, Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, Gary Payton II and De’Anthony Melton instead. Draymond already got his own contract answer settled without a public mess attached to it. Reaction on X was immediate.
https://twitter.com/BBallGround/status/2092487253826146683
Nobody in that building needs a group chat. They need one answer, repeated by the two people whose job it is to give it.
My brother texts me Suns highlights from Phoenix most nights, usually plays I’ve already seen twice, but this week he sent me the Lacob quote before I’d even finished reading the Dunleavy one. That’s how fast this traveled.
The front office can’t agree on the story, and Curry’s noticed.
