Stephen Curry could be Pat Riley’s last super star to sign with the Miami Heat

Front office insider

It was quite noteworthy when ESPN’s Amin Elhassan raised the topic of Curry potentially leaving the Warriors this off-season on a recent True Hoop podcast. Elhassan details his two primary reasons for placing Curry as a “10 percent chance” of departing this summer via free-agency.

The first being the idea that Curry could be taken for granted. This stems back to the Warriors pursuit, and eventual signing, of Durant. Coming off the back of a 73-win season and leading 3-1 in the Finals, the Warriors didn’t just go all out to entice Durant this past summer. They were recruiting him in the midst of their record-breaking regular season.

Despite crushing the league and having the presence of a back-to-back MVP, the Warriors were still somewhat hesitant as to the direction of the team.

Granted, recruiting a top five player in the league is a no-brainer for any team. But it’s incredibly rare for that team to already possess the current back-to-back MVP. In such an instance, the natural inclination for the team would be usually to add more complimentary players to fit around the resident superstar.

The Heat’s big three comparison can certainly be made, bringing in both James and Chris Bosh to play alongside the team’s resident superstar, Dwyane Wade, but there are a few big differences. The Heat were coming off a 47-win season and a first-round playoff exit. Furthermore, Wade and James were already very close friends. But most notably, it wasn’t Curry, the Warriors’ marquee player, who initiated the recruiting process.

That was left to Draymond Green, the versatile all-star forward, whose role on the team would not drastically change in the event that the reciting process was successful

Furthermore, in contrast to the Heat, the Warriors had led 3-1 in the Finals, with Curry becoming the first-ever unanimous league MVP. In other words, they were already at the top of the mountain.

(Side Note: If you wanted to trace it back in history, the last time an MVP left his team whilst still in his prime to join a 50-plus win team was Moses Malone in 1982. Malone joined a 58-win Sixers’ team fresh off a finals loss. Malone would again win the league MVP in1983, on the way to leading the Sixers to the title.)

So in terms of being taken for granted as it pertains to this offseason, Elhassan explained that the Warriors might not go to the same lengths as they did to land Durant to re-sign Curry. “Oh, we don’t need to do that, ’cause he’s coming back. We don’t need no dog and pony show,” Elhassan said of Golden State’s potential thinking.

This would draw parallels with the Heat and their dealings with Wade this past off-season. Assuming player loyalty, the Heat and its president, Pat Riley, made no formal presentation this past offseason to Wade during the free-agency. The eventual outcome was Wade signing with the Chicago Bulls. As Riley later stated:

"“I didn’t make it happen. Dwyane left, and the buck stops here. I have great regret I didn’t put myself in the middle of it and immerse myself in the middle of it and get in a canoe and paddle to the Mediterranean if I had to, be in New York when he arrived on [July 6] and greet him at the airport. I wasn’t there in the middle of the negotiation, and that’s my job. It’s not going to be the same without him.”"

While Wade was 34 at the time, and Curry will be 29 this summer, the principle is similar. Wade had sacrificed salary for years, only to be rejected when he finally felt he was due.

In this case, the Warriors can be seen to have been overly accommodating in incorporating Durant into their system, at the expense of their resident MVP in Curry.