Stephen Curry’s new ‘supermax’ deal is significant for a number of reasons, but namely because he’s the first player to earn $200 million from a single deal.
Coming into free agency, everybody knew that Stephen Curry re-signing in Golden State was a formality. Even with the addition of Kevin Durant, he’s their most important player and will go down as the greatest player in franchise history.
But after getting by on team-friendly deals and drastically outperforming his value, Curry cashed in on the first mega-deal of his career. And it’ll likely set the bar for superstar contracts from here on out.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski’s report of the deal, it doesn’t include a player option and it’s worth $201 million. That comes out to an average of $40.2 million per year, making him far and away the highest paid player in the league. LeBron James held that honor last year, and he was making $33 million. He’s probably looking at this deal right now and wishing he could opt out.
A big part of what made this deal possible is the salary cap rising again. It’s gone up another $5 million to $99,093,000. People laughed when Mike Conley was signed to a $30 million deal last offseason, but that was a by-product of the rising salary cap. Having it go up again means we’ll probably see more deals like Conley’s this offseason. Don’t be surprised to see George Hill and Gordon Hayward cash in for $30 million wherever they go.
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Nobody’s happier about this Curry deal right now than Warriors fans. By locking him up for five years without a player option, they are ensuring he remains on the team throughout his prime. Durant will probably have to sign for less than what he’s worth to stay as well, but because of the cap, it won’t be by that much.
Even though plenty of teams out West are building superteams of their own, don’t expect Golden State to release their stranglehold on the rest of the NBA just yet.