Stephen Curry Is Tired Of Hearing About Warriors Fake Trades

It has been a rollercoaster of a season for the Golden State Warriors, who came out of the gates red-hot to start the year but have cooled off significantly, falling to 10th in the West at 20-20 as we reach the midway point of the season.

The conversation about the Warriors this season has been very similar to what it was last season, as it is clear they do not have the firepower alongside Stephen Curry to be one of the best teams in the NBA. The Warriors search for a second star has seen them pop up in rumors for everyone from Paul George to Lauri Markkanen to, most recently, Jimmy Butler, but at no point have they been willing to part with their best assets to make a push right now. For his part, Curry (and Draymond Green) noted recently that he doesn’t want the Warriors mortgaging their future for right now, which led to some frustration for Warriors fans who feel like the organization has given up on maximizing the end of the Curry era.

On Wednesday night, the Warriors beat the Timberwolves on the road to get back to .500 in a thriller that saw some late-game heroics from Curry, and afterwards he had a message for all of the folks cooking up fake trades for the Warriors in his postgame interview with Scott Van Pelt.

“All the Twitter fingers who got deals we need to make can kind of shut up a little bit and let us figure this thing out,” Curry said. “We know we can be competitive, we showed that toughness tonight. Obviously every team is trying to find ways to get better, and for us we’ve been great for a very long time, this is just a unique year where we have to stay relevant and give ourselves a chance and just have some life in a playoff series. And we have a whole lot of confidence that we can beat anybody.”

He elaborated on that and the critique from fans of the recent comments by he, Green, and Kerr in his postgame presser, explaining in no uncertain terms that he’s not alright wallowing away in mediocrity, but pointed out there’s a difference between that and being “reckless.”

“Anyone who thinks I’m okay with being on an average basketball team is insane,” Curry said. “Take whatever I said, I still stand on it, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not in a situation where you’re trying to get better, make appropriate moves that help you do that. Mike knows that, we’ve talked about it. That’s the expectation from me trying to help lead the team where we want to go. Again, that doesn’t mean that you’re reckless. What people’s definition of that is is what I was talking about the Twitter fingers thing.Trade machines are fun, but what does that actually look like? We’re gonna handle our business. Mike’s gonna handle his. We’ll see where we end up.”

I enjoy playing with the trade machine as much as anyone and we like to float fake trades here for fun, but I absolutely understand why the constant trade chatter this time of year would be frustrating inside a locker room. Curry, as the team’s leader, has to walk a fine line because he needs the buy-in of his teammates while also having the kind of presence and voice in the organization where they will value and seek out his input on deals. He has never been one to publicly wield that power too much with the media, so it’s not a shock he would push back on the idea the Warriors need to just make a trade at any cost, while still making it clear that he wants the team to get better — whether that’s from external additions or internal improvements.

At the same time, it’s understandable why Warriors fans would be frustrated with how the team has operated the last two years and their inability to get Curry the kind of secondary star help the team is so clearly lacking. Their public overtures on George and Markkanen this summer felt as much like the organization making it look like they were trying as it was an earnest effort to go all-in one more time. That has led Warriors fans to become skeptical of whether ownership and this front office are truly willing to do what it takes to chase one more ring with Curry, who proved this summer with Team USA he still can reach incredible heights.

How they navigate the next three weeks will be fascinating, but no matter what Curry says after a win (and again, it’s exactly what he should be saying as the team’s leader), I don’t think anyone, even in the Warriors fan base, believes this team as constructed can be a legitimate contender in the West. That said, the reality might also be that there’s not one player out there that turns them into one, and Curry and company may recognize that a larger overhaul in the summer might need to be their path to one last run rather than a trade for one of the few available stars at the deadline.