Stephen Curry, superstar of patience

After the departure of Kevin Durant in 2019 and the serious injury of Klay Thompson, the Warriors assumed a double “timeline” in their construction, betting both on their thirty-year-old stars like Stephen Curry, but also on young people who were to take over.

For many, it was a very risky choice, which risked spoiling the last good years of the double MVP, and Steve Kerr recognizes that many stars would not have accepted this double timeline.

“A lot of stars would have said, ‘No, we need to trade all these young guys for a star, I need a star on my side,'” the coach explained to The Athletic. “At the club level, the decision was, ‘Let’s grow these young guys to have a bright future. Very few players in Steph’s position would have said, ‘All right, I’ll accept that and we’ll work to make it happen.'”

Among superstars, especially LeBron James, the norm is thus more about pressuring clubs to play for the title in the short term. Youth development and patience are secondary.

“That’s not how I operate,” Stephen Curry admits. “There have been conversations about different paths to take, and we’ve discussed different paths together. But at the end of the day, I trust Bob (Myers, the GM), and I trust who we are. There was no panic. Obviously, it helps that we’ve won some titles. It gives you patience. But there was no panic to make sure that me, Klay and Draymond got another chance, to see how we could have elements around us to make it work. It’s just patience at the end of the day.

Patience to allow the development of Jordan Poole. Patience to allow Andrew Wiggins to become an All-Star in his role. Patience to wait for Klay Thompson to return.

“To pull off something like this (such a quick rebuild) is to have a superstar athletically who is also a superstar humanly. That’s the only option to make it work.”

A patience allowed by the leadership of Stephen Curry, always on the same wavelength as his managers.

“This is reflected at all levels,” says Kerr. “With the players, the coaches. It makes my job easier, it makes Bob’s job easier, it makes Joe’s job (Lacob, the owner) easier.

Joe Lacob thus recalls that Stephen Curry is “the active player who has been with the same club for the longest time” (in fact, it is Udonis Haslem, in his 19th season in Miami while the point guard is in his 13th campaign in Golden State, but the interior has only a theoretical role) and that he is “the culture” and the “perfect marriage”.

He is in fact the Tim Duncan of Golden State, this superstar able to evolve and adapt, over the years, to allow his club to be always competitive.

“That’s the foundation of everything,” concludes Steve Kerr. “The only way all of this is possible, to pull off something like this (such a quick rebuild), is to have a superstar athletically who is also a superstar humanly. That’s the only option to make it work. Steph is exactly that. He is an incredible leader, very quiet. But the other guys see everything he does.

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