Stephen Curry was never going to sit out the rest of this season if he was healthy.
The freshly minted 38-year-old wasn’t going to allow that to happen for two key reasons. First, he is proud of the standard of winning he helped establish for the Golden State Warriors over the last 17 years. It’s a standard he shares with longtime teammate, Draymond Green, and his longtime coach, Steve Kerr.
Together, along with former teammate Klay Thompson, now with the Dallas Mavericks, they built the standard and culture that has sustained this organization for over a decade. That culture carries a deep sense of pride, not just wearing a Warriors jersey, but what it represents.
“I love playing basketball,” Curry said after Saturday’s practice. “That’s what I get paid to do. So, if I’m healthy to play and it’s safe to go out there and test it in live action, all the work that I’ve put in will hopefully pay off.”
Kerr echoed Curry’s line of thinking. When asked recently what he would say to a portion of the fan base calling for Curry to sit out the remainder of the season, the 60-year-old coach was direct.
“First of all, we’re not doing that,” Kerr told The Athletic in March about shutting Curry down, even if healthy. “Steph’s gonna play again. He’s trending in the right direction. This is not like an injury we’re worried about affecting him long-term. And if it were, we’d keep him out. But this is something that I trust the training staff on, I trust Steph on. If he’s ready next week, he’s gonna play next week. Because that’s the job — and that’s what we do. We compete, we play and we want to give ourselves a chance.
“Any time you have a chance to go to the playoffs, go to the frickin’ playoffs. Because it’s the whole point of what we’re trying to do in this business — is win.”
Now that stance has its answer. Curry is expected to return to the lineup Sunday night against the Houston Rockets, ending a two-month absence because of a runner’s knee injury.
That leads us to the second reason, one nearly as important as the culture itself. The reason he pushed so hard to come back is that he knows that his window is finite. While he isn’t sure how much longer he wants to play, he knows his opportunities to play in meaningful games are dwindling.
“Our season’s been different than we expected, but the fact that there is something to still play for, gives all of us a lot of confidence down the stretch to try to make something out of it and I want to be part of it,” Curry said.
Curry and Kerr have long shared the same mantra when it comes to competing. They’re grateful for the opportunity they have to do what they do, and they enjoy the work that has gone into their respective careers that have brought them to this point. That mindset is at the core of why Kerr never doubted Curry would return as soon as he was healthy enough to do so. When asked about shutting down Curry, Kerr delivered a two-and-a-half-minute response.
“I think people need to understand what goes into winning,” Kerr said. “It’s a set of standards. It’s a set of ideals and values — competing and working together, overcoming adversity. Because these are things that apply whether you’re trying to get through the Play-In or you’re trying to beat Cleveland in the finals in 2015. It’s like it’s not a matter of just showing up and rolling a ball out, it’s a matter of building habits and building an identity and learning how to get through adversity, emotional issues. Every bit of this feeds into that.
“So what we are doing at the end of this year is trying to show what we’re about character-wise as a group. Organizationally, what we’re about.”
Curry returns to a team that has been locked into the Play-In Tournament for weeks. The Warriors have endured season-ending injuries to Jimmy Butler (torn ACL) and Moses Moody (left patellar tendon rupture), as well as a variety of injuries up and down the roster.
On paper, the argument made by many fans is that the risk of bringing Curry back isn’t worth the potential reward. The Warriors, as currently constructed, aren’t talented enough, or healthy enough, to make a deep run in the postseason. But that argument goes against how this iteration of the organization came to prominence in the first place.
“You just can’t be a guy that quits when it gets tough,” Green said after a recent win over the Brooklyn Nets. “I’ve had some incredible years here, been part of some incredible teams, banners, all that stuff. And it’s great. And when that stuff is happening, you want to be at the forefront of it, you want to embrace it, enjoy it, all those things. Great. When it goes a little left, you can’t jump off the train. You can’t walk around and pout. You can’t throw in the towel. Or what was everything you did before?”
There’s also another perspective: If the Warriors were to drop the first Play-In game, they would give themselves the chance, small as it may be, to improve their lottery odds, just like the Dallas Mavericks did en route to landing the No. 1 pick (and eventually Cooper Flagg) last year.
But that line of thinking isn’t something the Warriors have ever considered. That’s not what has brought Curry, Kerr and Green to this point. They want to maintain the standard they’ve created — even at the end of one of their toughest seasons.
“We use a word around here all the time: front-runners,” Green said. “And I think one thing we did through our dominant run was take advantage of the front-runners. And I can’t give that to these guys. Could I throw in the towel? Possibly. But what does that look like then for Gui Santos? Or what does that look like for Brandin Podziemski? You’re talking (about someone) who’s trying to build themselves a career. De’Anthony Melton came back here after a year off, trying to build back to where he was. You can’t just throw a towel in on them.
“That’s just not who I’ve ever been, and it’s not who I’m gonna become.”
They believe in the work. It’s what has made the Warriors the Warriors. And it’s why Curry was so intent on returning.
“I really believe in values,” Kerr said. “I believe in competition and joy. I believe these last few weeks of the season, I want our team to show both. Because I think those things, finding that balance, really competing like crazy, enjoying the process, enjoying the games themselves, the players being thoroughly engaged, I believe all that leads to a winning culture.
“And you don’t just suddenly abandon your values because everything looks hopeless. In fact, it’s the opposite. You attack it. You lean into it.”
Kerr doubled down on those feelings after Saturday’s practice, saying that Curry’s return goes right to the heart of what the organization believes in. It’s the culture that he and Curry have set for over a decade, and why both men feel so strongly about the 38-year-old returning in a season that lost its championship aspirations months ago.
“It cuts to the core of what our business is about,” Kerr said. “We want our fans to be really excited to come watch beautiful basketball. And nobody represents that more than Steph … We’ve been able to play a really entertaining style and win championships. And frankly, Steph is responsible for more of that than anyone. He’s one of the greatest players of all time, but he’s the greatest face of a franchise in any sport that I’ve ever seen.”
That’s exactly why Curry is expected to be back on the floor on Sunday and not waiting for next season.