In any normal situation, we wouldn’t be overly focused on the next contract for a 38-and-a-half-year-old guard. That player is probably signing for the veteran minimum, if he’s signing anything at all.

Stephen Curry isn’t a normal player.

Even as he prepares for his 18th NBA season, Curry remains one of the NBA’s best players. The durability isn’t really there, the playmaking has dipped, the shooting has fallen off ever so slightly, but Curry is still a top-tier offensive weapon going into his age-38 season.

That age-38 season also sees Curry completing the final year of his contract with the Golden State Warriors. The future Hall of Famer became extension-eligible at the end of August. Curry has only been a free agent once, back in 2017. Each time since, Curry has extended his contract. This time around, Curry has no additional years left on his deal. That could leave him poised to become a free agent for the first time in a decade.

Let’s pause here to recognize that neither Curry nor the Warriors have any intention of ending their partnership. Curry has said he plans to play for no other team in the NBA. Golden State’s leadership, from owner Joe Lacob to GM Mike Dunleavy Jr., have said they have no intention for the best player in franchise history to play anywhere else.

But being committed to staying together doesn’t mean that Curry and the Warriors don’t have options. To be fair, those options lean far more towards Curry than the team. Golden State has indicated that Curry just needs to tell him what he wants and the Warriors will make it happen contract-wise.

Now, let’s take a look at what those different options are Curry. We’ll focus on how different contracts benefit Curry, the Warriors and often both parties.

The Maximum Veteran Extension

Because of the Over-38 Rule, Curry is effectively limited to contracts that are three years in length. He could sign for longer, but that would mean salary being artificially put onto the earlier years of the deal, increasing the cap hits for those seasons. Basically, there is no real chance Curry will sign any contract longer than three years in total.

Because he’s on an expiring contract, Curry will be extension-eligible through June 30. Unlike several other veterans, Curry doesn’t have to extend before the start of the regular season. He can take it all the way down to the league year changing over. If he’s going to extend, Curry probably won’t take it that far. At that point, he might as well just sign a new contract. If Curry is going to extend, it’ll likely come far earlier than the end of June.

This season, Curry is set to make $62,587,158. That’s above the maximum salary, because each time Curry has extended previously (outside of his rookie scale extension), his contract growth has almost always outpaced cap growth, and thus maximum salary growth.

Curry’s extension can start as high as 105% of his previous salary. If Curry signed a two-year, maximum extension, that contract would look like this:


2026-27: $62,587,158 – current season
2027-28: $65,716,516
2028-29: $70,973,837
Total extension: two years, $136,690,353

That first year of the extension starts at 105% of Curry’s current salary. Then, the deal goes up by the maximum of 8% from Year 1 of the extension to Year 2.

The benefit for Curry and the Warriors here is that the deal is done. Nothing hangs over them into the season. It also allows the team to plan for the 2027 offseason and beyond while knowing where things are at with Curry.

In both 2027-28 and 2028-29, Curry would be the NBA’s highest-paid player, as things currently sit. But there’s a possibility that Curry could extend that distinction into 2029-30 if he waits to re-sign until July.

Re-signing with the Warriors as a free agent

As we covered above, Stephen Curry hasn’t been a free agent since 2017. If he wants to experience free agency for the first in a decade, has a chance in the summer of 2027.

Once again, the Over-38 Rule comes into play here. There’s no difference between an extension and a new contract for Curry when it comes to the Over-38 Rule. That means Curry is functionally limited to a three-year deal in total. Here’s what that maximum contract would look like if Curry re-signs in July:


2027-28: $65,716,516
2028-29: $70,973,837
2028-30: $76,231,158
Total: three years, $212,921,511

Whew boy…that’s a lot of money, both annually and in total. But it’s Stephen Curry and it’s the Warriors, so we get it.

That contract would again start at 105% of Curry’s current salary. And, it would also include 8% raises.

A benefit for Curry of passing on extending and delaying to re-sign as a free agent is that he could finally have a No-Trade Clause in his contract. Yes, that’s correct: Curry has never had an NTC before. The reason for this is that an NTC can only be given in a new contract. Since Curry has only ever extended his deal since 2017, he’s never been able to add an NTC.

Now, does he need an NTC? Probably not. The Warriors have openly said that they would only trade Curry if he asked for a deal. But things do change in the NBA. Having an NTC would give Curry full control over where he plays out the latter years of his career.

Signing with another team as a free agent

Simply for posterity’s sake, here’s what Curry could sign for with another team:


2027-28: $65,716,516
2028-29: $69,002,342
2028-30: $72,288,168
Total: three years, $207,007,026

That’s the same 105% of Curry’s current salary in Year 1 of a new deal. The difference is that this is followed by 5% raises, which are the maximum a player can get when they change teams. And, yes, if there was some kind of sign-and-trade involved, the contract would look like this. Also, the Over-38 Rule still applies here too, limiting Curry to functionally signing a three-year contract.

It’s less money, obviously. That’s one reason to skip this option. But the real reason this seems unlikely to be the path Curry takes? It’s not staying with the Warriors.

Leaving some money on the table

We’re in relatively uncharted territory here with players pushing the Over-38 boundaries as max or near-max players. It’s still a fairly new thing for players to be playing at a high level this deep into their careers. The handful of players to previously be in this spot all eventually took less than the max.

Chris Paul was nowhere near a max deal when he reupped with the Phoenix Suns in 2021 and even less so when he signed with the San Antonio Spurs in 2024.

Kevin Durant extended for less than the max after he was traded to the Houston Rockets. LeBron James took less than the max to give the Los Angeles Lakers some additional flexibility in his final contract with the team. And James Harden has signed for less than the max in his last several deals with the Philadelphia 76ers, LA Clippers and Cleveland Cavaliers.

These are Curry’s contemporaries in the NBA. You can even argue that other than Paul, who finally fell off at the very end of his career, that Curry and these other NBA legends are all playing at similar levels. Still awesome, but not players who can carry a team on their own any longer.

And that’s why it could benefit both Curry and the Warriors if he leaves some money on the table in his next deal.

Whether Curry extends or re-signs, if he doesn’t max out at north of $65 million, that could give Golden State a considerable amount of cap space this offseason. Yes, the long-time taxpaying and apron-impacted Warriors could have a ton of cap space for the first time since they signed Durant.

If Golden State clears the deck of all of their non-guaranteed salary, and renounces all of their pending free agents minus restricted free agent Brandin Podziemski, heading into the summer of 2027, they would start the offseason with $110.5 million in cap space. Some of that would go to re-signing Curry, but that’s incredible flexibility for the Warriors to rebuild the team around their franchise player.

Let’s say Curry takes $40 million in starting salary for 2027-28. That would leave Golden State with nearly $72 million in cap space (remember roster charges come into play, so it’s not as simple as $110.5 million – $40 million.)

A 35% of the cap maximum salary for 2027-28 currently projects to be $60.9 million. Are there any potential free agents worth the full max?

Nikola Jokic leads the list. No one really expects Jokic to leave the Denver Nuggets, but if things go sideways, the Warriors would be poised to pounce. Veteran big men Anthony Davis and Karl-Anthony Towns are also potential free agents next summer.

LeBron James, who passed on a chance to join Golden State this summer, could again be a free agent. Veteran wings like Kevin Durant (probably not happening!), Paul George and Michael Porter Jr. are all potential free agents in 2027 too. And there’s a very long list of rotation-level veterans set to hit the market next summer.

And, of course, cap space can be used to acquire players in trades. There will be no shortage of players that move via trade, as we saw this offseason.

Basically, with more than $100 million in cap space, Golden State would be positioned to re-sign Curry, then rebuild their team by adding considerable talent around their franchise player in the waning years of his career. James, Durant and Harden all joined teams with talent already in place. Curry and the Warriors would be attempting to draw that talent to them.

Leaving money on the table in the short term for a long-term payoff

This situation is a lot like the above situation, but with one key difference: Curry would only leave money on the table for one season. Then, using his Bird rights in 2028, the Warriors could bump Curry all the way back up to the maximum salary in 2028.

Now, entering into any sort of agreement like this in advance would run afoul of NBA rules. That’s especially concerning and dangerous in the wake of the LA Clippers cap circumvention case. But it’s certainly possibly under the rules to happen without a prearranged agreement, even if it would look pretty fishy.

How it would work is that Curry could extend or re-sign for something like $25 million for 2027-28. That would create roughly $87 million in cap space for the Warriors this summer. Then in the summer of 2028, Golden State could re-sign Curry for three years and a projected maximum salary of $207.2 million. Curry would give up some money in the immediate to allow Golden State to load up the roster. Then, he’d recoup that money by signing a three-year contract a year later.

This isn’t likely to be the way things go. It’s simply too risky for Curry and the Warriors with giving the NBA reason to look into circumvention. But if Curry signs for an eye-brow-raising low salary for the 2027-28 season on a one-year deal, or a two-year deal with a player option, then remember what we called out here.

Summary

Both Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors have options for their next contract together. That’s true even if the final decision seems to really lie with Curry on how that next deal will really look.

The favored path is that the player extends over waiting to re-sign. This is especially true when you are talking about maximum contracts. There’s a reason almost no max player reaches free agency anymore. The allure of locking in big-time money immediately is too great.

However, given his age, plus the path his contemporaries have taken in recent year, don’t rule out free agency being Curry’s path. That gives the Warriors time to create, and sell him on, a plan for rebuilding the roster around him. If that means Curry leaves some money on the table to allow Golden State to acquire more talent, it won’t be a surprise. If not, then Curry can add a third year and push his total contract value north of $200 million with a new max deal. Either way, if Curry finds himself a free agent for the first time, expect him to come away with the ever-rare NTC when he re-signs with the Warriors on a deal designed to keep him in the Bay Area for the rest of his career.