It appears the Golden State Warriors dynasty is coming to a close. The team has lost 19 of its last 28 games, many of those defeats coming with Stephen Curry in uniform, and now sits under .500. It’s an unthinkable collapse for a championship organization considering that Curry is still a top-10 player in the league by many advanced metrics. As our own Kevin O’Connor outlined this week, it might be time for Curry and the Warriors to part ways just as Paul Pierce and the Celtics did back in 2013, a tough decision that successfully laid down the next championship foundation for Boston.
If Curry were on the trade block, there’s no shortage of teams that, in theory, would be interested in adding the greatest shooter who ever lived. Who wouldn’t? But with this new collective bargaining agreement and the trade restrictions it sewed for many teams in title pursuits, Curry’s contract will likely prove to be too onerous. The 36-year-old is owed $55.8 million this season, $59.6 million in 2025-26 and $62.6 million in 2026-27 — currently the most expensive contract in the sport on an annual basis.
The San Antonio Spurs, however, should consider that a bargain.
Spurs president R.C. Buford and the whole organization should do everything they can to acquire Curry. Skeptics might say it’s too soon for second-year phenom Victor Wembanyama, who is still playing on his rookie-scale contract.
But that’s precisely why you trade for Curry. Wemby’s four-year, rookie-scale contract is a roster-building cheat code. It provides a golden window of opportunity. Past teams recognized the hack in the system and leveraged it into championships. The Spurs should do the same while Wemby is healthy and dominating.
Said one longtime GM: “In this league, you never have as much time as you think you have.”
It’s not too early for Wembanyama and the Spurs. Early is the whole idea.
The Wemby window
Before Jimmy Butler, before LeBron James, there was Shaquille O’Neal. It was the summer of 2004 when Heat team president Pat Riley found out that the Lakers’ three-time champion and MVP center might be available following a startling L.A. Finals loss to the Pistons. The Heat had reached the conference finals just once in the 16 years of the franchise and were poised to make a South Beach splash.
What better way to do that than pick from a championship core? Riley struck a deal to pluck the 32-year-old O’Neal, who was just two years removed from winning a Finals MVP. The Heat sent Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant and a future first-round pick to Los Angeles. Notably absent from the deal: Dwyane Wade, who had just wrapped up a dazzling rookie season.
“I wanted to go to another contender, and Miami is definitely another contender,” Shaq told the AP at the time of the trade. “We’re just going to grow together.”
Operative word: grow. No one could be blamed if he or she saw Shaq’s “contender” characterization of the Heat as a tad premature. Wade was still just 22, and the Heat were coming off a season in which they posted a middling 42-40 record.
Riley didn’t care about the standings. He didn’t care about the $27.7 million that Shaq would be owed in 2004-05, $10 million more than any other player. When Shaq inexplicably became available, the former Lakers coach pounced on the opportunity to bring in the richest contract in the sport, knowing he had Wade waiting in the wings.
It turned out to be a stroke of genius. Two years later, in just the third year of Wade’s career, the Heat won a 2006 championship. It was a 24-year-old Wade, not Shaq, who earned the Finals MVP nod.
Wade’s salary while winning the Finals MVP? A hair over $3 million.
That’s right, the NBA champions were paying their best player, who averaged 34.7 points in the NBA Finals, half of what they were paying role players Jason Williams, Antoine Walker and James Posey.
This is the Wemby window. We can talk about the godfather star-chasing story of Riley trading for Shaq. But there’s a cold-calculated economic lesson here, too. The Heat capitalized on the artificially suppressed salary for a budding superstar, Wade, who was still in the midst of his four-year rookie scale contract.
In the title-winning season, the Heat could absorb Shaq’s salary, still the most lucrative in the sport, because they were paying Wade a fraction of his market value. One could balk at paying Shaq on the downside of his career (the Heat signed Shaq to a 5-year, $100 million extension in the summer of 2005), but that’s a superficial way to think about it. The Heat brass knew the math of the rookie-scale contract and understood they could in time be paying two All-NBA players a combined $23 million in 2005-06, a highway robbery considering other duos in the NBA took up way more of the cap (the Knicks paid Stephon Marbury and Allan Houston a cool $35 million that season).
Like Wade, Wembanyama is tracking to reach an All-NBA team in his second season while making less than the mid-level exception. The Spurs are paying a player who is averaging 24.4 points, 10.8 rebounds and 4.0 blocks just $12.7 million this season, less money than what Brooklyn is paying De’Anthony Melton. In the next two seasons, Wemby will make $13.4 million and $16.9 million, pennies compared to the salaries that his peers will be commanding. Think about it: The Spurs could be paying “Max Strus money” to the 2026-27 MVP.
This is why Curry could be seen as a cap-table bargain.
Yahoo Sports