Stephen Curry would have been open to taking less money than the supermax deal that he signed for this offseason if doing so would have helped the Warriors sign important free agents. Curry offered to take a pay cut, he tells :
Curry said he was willing to take less and told general manager Bob Myers as much.
“I actually asked Bob,” he said. “If I were to take a discount — at any number, I don’t know what it would be — how much of a difference would that make for us to be able to sign other guys. It wasn’t like (Kevin Durant’s) situation. His had a direct impact on us being able to sign Andre (Iguodala) and Shaun (Livingston). And it was just an unbelievable sacrifice by KD. But mine didn’t matter.”
Kevin Durant notably took a pay cut this summer, signing a two-year deal worth $53 million.
Kevin Durant's $25 million salary is $9.5 million less than his max, $6.8 less than expected and $1.54 million less than he made last year.
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) July 3, 2017
Durant taking less money than he could have enabled the Warriors to bring back Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, thus keeping the team’s championship core together. Because Durant had already done so, and because the Warriors have managed to sign/re-sign important free agents at the minimum (Nick Young, Omri Casspi, JaVale McGee, Zaza Pachulia), Curry was able to get his big payday.