NBA Twitter was abuzz Tuesday when ESPN's Brian Windhorst made an off-the-cuff comment on "The Hoop Collective" podcast that LeBron James was starting to recruit Steph Curry to join the Los Angeles Lakers should the Warriors star become a free agent after next season.
"I thought it was hilarious over All-Star Weekend -- LeBron praising Steph up and down,' Windhorst said. "LeBron obviously has begun the recruiting of Steph in the event he wouldn't extend, and that somehow he would become a free agent."
Curry has one year remaining on his current contract, but he is expected to sign an extension with the Warriors this offseason.
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President of basketball operations Bob Myers could only laugh at the latest nugget in the 24/7 NBA rumor mill, and doesn't read much into the idea that James will lure Curry to the Los Angeles.
"I mean, we're never going to stop hearing this. It doesn't matter if the guy signs an extension or not anymore," Myers told The Athletic's Tim Kawakami on "The TK Show" podcast. "Whether it's one of our guys or any guy, the drumbeat never stops. It's what people want, the rumors of the NBA, especially because you have such high-profile players, it's a little bit like they are celebrities and people can't get enough of rumors and gossip. I think rumors like that or any rumors about a great player will always be there as long as the player is great. All we can do is make our place of work somewhere people can show up and feel like they can compete.
"I think Steph has felt like we have given him a really good chance in his career and time with us to succeed individually and team-wise and that's what we are going to keep trying to do. So I don't really -- you talk about my own sanity, I don't really give those things much credence or else I would have to get out of the business. Because that's today's rumor. They'll be another one tomorrow and the next day. I would say I think Steph is happy and I think he's in a good place and I think things are going to be fine with him."
The Warriors had an opportunity to extend Curry prior to this season, but due to everything surrounding the run-up to the start of the season, Myers and the Warriors pushed it back to this offseason when they will be able to offer Curry a bigger and longer extension.
Golden State Warriors
"It was just one of those things -- it was such a rushed season and preseason and with what was going on and dealing with Klay and all the things we had going on, and the COVID stuff and all that stuff was so unique that we very congenially said, 'Let's just talk about it next season,'" Myers told Kawakami. "In his mind, the length matters. It wasn't contentious, nobody was upset. It was just, 'Hey, let's just talk about it at the end of next season.' That probably meant that everybody feels good about the situation. It wasn't anything, like I mentioned, nobody was feeling badly about it. It's something that we'll pick up at the end of this season.
"A person of his stature, for what he's accomplished here with our organization, they are almost like a partner," Myers continued. "They're really, you want them to feel like a partnership in the future, and somebody like that has certainly earned that type of respect. You just don't see it anymore, players like him. I don't know that you'll see it much at all in the future, people staying in the same place. People don't even go to high school anymore for four years. They go to three high schools. Now you can transfer college and it doesn't matter. People quit jobs. I have a great reverence for people like him.
"We were lucky enough to inherit him. We didn't draft him that was Larry Riley and Don Nelson and that regime. I guess what we did do well was give him a chance to win because it seems to be in the modern era that if a player doesn't feel that way they leave and get traded. It's one thing to draft somebody or, in our case, inherit somebody. It's another to give them a place where they want to stay. That's a credit to Steve Kerr, Joe Lacob that we have done that with him and he feels really good about his relationships here, his success here. I don't know what the guy hasn't done as far as MVPs, championships, leadership, off the court. It's really rare to find people like that, obviously, Kobe did that in LA. There are maybe five guys that you say played in one place their whole career and accomplished what he has accomplished. So we just want to continue that and I think he does as well."
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While Curry and James clearly enjoyed being teammates for the first time in their careers at the 2021 NBA All-Star Game, there's no reason to expect Curry to be heading south to call Staples Center home.
He's a Warrior for life.