NBA Alternate Universe: Steph Curry is traded to the Spurs this summer (and everyone wins)

In case you haven’t noticed, the Golden State Warriors dynasty is over. With Klay Thompson a shell of his former self and Draymond Green trending in a similar direction, the Warriors simply don’t have the star power required to contend in a rapidly improving NBA, even with Stephen Curry still playing at an All-Star level at age 36. Their window is closed.

Curry deserves a shot at a fifth ring, but it’s not going to happen. The greatest shooter who’s ever lived will spend his final seasons in Golden State not dissimilarly from how Kobe spent his final Laker years, continuing to entertain the one franchise he’s been fiercely loyal to his entire career, but no longer contending. There’s no shame in this. Almost any NBA player would take Curry’s or Kobe’s career over their own, from start to finish. There’s something special about staying with one franchise until the end. A handful of rings doesn’t hurt, either.

In a way, we’ve always known Curry would be a lifelong Warrior. For years, we’ve already been able to envision his statue in Golden State. He would look wrong in any other uniform.

Even so, would any of us blame Curry for waking up one day this summer and deciding he wants another championship? Would any of us criticize him for chasing Kobe’s five, even Jordan’s six, if it meant requesting out of Golden State? It’s more likely that we would all be excited by the prospect.

At this point in NBA history, any narrative criticizing Stephen Curry’s character or ego is impossible to write. There’s no material. The only noteworthy story about Curry’s ego describes how he sacrificed it at the height of his powers to make room for Kevin Durant. That’s right — at the peak of his prime, the greatest shooter of all time actually took a backseat to another great scorer, all in the name of team success.

No one in the history of ring chasing would be more forgivable than 2025 Stephen Curry, if you could even call his departure from GSW “ring chasing”; I, for one, don’t think it would be considered that. Ring chasers are usually hopping in the trunk of a championship truck, not driving or sitting in the passenger’s seat. Think Celtics Shaq. That’s epic ring chasing.

Curry can still be a first or second option on a contender, and with his game not overly reliant on athleticism, he’s likely to remain alpha worthy for another two seasons, maybe more. Guys will be joining Steph’s team to ring chase, not the other way around.

Curry could only be accused of ring chasing (and have his legacy compromised) if he were to join a bona fide contender. This is why he wouldn’t join teams like the Celtics, Nuggets, Thunder, or a few others. Doing so wouldn’t be worth the trouble of not finishing his career as a Warrior.

Imagine, however, that Curry joins a current non-contender and ends up magically vying for a title in his final years. To imagine this, you’ll have to think of a team that is currently awful but also a Stephen Curry addition away from being great. Before long, you’ll realize that Victor Wembanyama's San Antonio Spurs are the only franchise that fits this description.

The Warriors are never going to trade Stephen Curry, we should once against establish. The only way Curry could get traded is if he vehemently requested out, which is also not going to happen. Still, it’s interesting to imagine an alternate universe in which he did. After all, Stephen Curry on the Spurs in 2024-25 would greatly benefit the NBA, Curry’s legacy, and even the Warriors, who could get a head start on their inevitable and looming rebuild by trading Curry rather than waste the next five years in increasingly obscure non-contention.

Stephen Curry and Victor Wembanyama could be unstoppable

In a league of dynamic duos, Curry-Wemby would be the crowning achievement, at least marketing wise. Adam Silver would be elated. Plus, the team could viably contend, especially since they’d be retaining current rotational pieces Devin Vassell, Zach Collins, and Jeremy Sochan despite acquiring Curry (full trade details further below). With Curry still playing at a high level and Wemby trending towards a top-10 player in the world faster than we all thought he would, there’s no reason why a Curry-Wemby Spurs team would not be an immediate and serious problem for the league. Also, who can ignore the potential for basketball euphoria that is a Steph Curry-Gregg Popovich collaboration?

If this trade happens, everyone wins. The NBA gains another team garnering blockbuster global viewership (more than covering the losses of Golden State’s subsequent viewership vacuum), Steph Curry — the ultimate competitor — now gets to play out the final years of his career in real contention, and the Warriors get to jumpstart a rebuild that is already written on the wall.

Additionally, although Curry to the Spurs has a 0.0 percent chance of happening this summer, the trade is not financially impossible. The money works with San Antonio sending Keldon Johnson, Devonte’ Graham and Tre Jones to Golden State in exchange for Curry.

Of course, a trio of Johnson-Graham-Jones does not come close to approaching Stephen Curry’s basketball value (even at 36 years old), but this is where San Antonio’s trove of draft picks comes into play. The Spurs don’t own the most valuable chest of draft picks in the NBA (Sam Presti exists), but their collection is better than most. San Antonio is sitting on no less than 5 first-round picks over the next two drafts, only one of which is protected (2024 Raptors, top-six). Furthermore, the Spurs’ own first-round selection in the upcoming draft is expected to be in the top five, barring a lottery catastrophe.

Trading Curry at 36 isn’t going to get you a return of a prime-aged superstar, so the next-best option is to dive into the rebuild. What better way to start the post-Curry era in Golden State than with a top-five pick and a handful of other first-rounders over the next 24 months? The Warriors could also feasibly let Klay Thompson walk in free agency and add to the $9.9 million in cap space that the Curry trade creates.

If the Warriors are no longer going to contend, what’s the real value of keeping the Splash Brothers intact until the bitter end? If anything, letting Curry and Thompson go at the right time would better preserve in the culture’s memory what these two have achieved over the last decade. Why sully a near-perfect dynastical legacy with a few years of sheer irrelevance for us all to cringe at?

After all that Curry’s done for Golden State, the Warriors could do something in the way of repaying Curry by trading him this summer to the San Antonio Spurs.  It’s never going to happen, but then again, the most impossible dreams are the sweetest.