The Golden State Warriors are in flux for the first time in over a decade after their failed attempt to land LeBron James. It effectively means the team is running back the same trio of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green — while hoping that rookie Yaxel Landeborg, and the return of Moses Moody can be enough of an addition to do something for them. Butler is currently out with a torn ACL, but he should be ready to go before the playoffs. Now the team that seemingly always has the answers is left without one, left simply hoping that their biggest competition around the back-end of the playoff cut managed to get worse this offseason.
As a result, the Warriors are little more than a middling team in a Western Conference that boasts the Thunder, Spurs, Nuggets, and Timberwolves. That’s before we even talk about the juggernauts the East is building in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Miami. Golden State ranked No. 23 out of 30 teams in our way-too-early NBA power rankings following LeBron to the Sixers. As a result, there’s speculation on whether Golden State could actually look to part ways with Steph Curry, accepting that they might not be in the position to assemble a real contender around Curry — while also understanding that if they want to rebuild into a contender, it will take assets they currently don’t possess.
Enter the Charlotte Hornets, who are in a bizarre, unique circumstance to make the sentimental value play for Curry, a Charlotte native who has pounded the drum at Panthers games, was in attendance for his dad’s jersey retirement, and fondly remembers hanging out with Muggsy Bogues in the Hornets locker room at their peak. The refrain of “Bring Steph Home” has been a yearly meme for Hornets fans, more or less ever since Charlotte missed out on drafting Curry in 2009 as the Bobcats — always said tongue-in-cheek, as if Steph would ever want to leave the Warriors to come back to North Carolina.
Maybe now that is becoming a real possibility. Not only is there talk about the Warriors potentially facing a Steph reckoning, but the Hornets represent one of the few teams that have the assets, and might be foolish enough to give them to add a 38-year-old star to a young, building roster. Couple all this with the fact that Steph has mentioned Charlotte off-hand as a potential landing spot for him other than Golden State over the years, and it’s stoked the flames of the rumor mill.
The question now is how much sense this really makes for anyone involved.
Why it makes sense for the Warriors to trade Steph
It never, ever works to be the team left holding the bag. Ideally you’d want to keep Curry, form another championship run, and have him sail off into the sunset as a winner, but that doesn’t feel like it’s in the cards right now. They made their play for LeBron, it didn’t work, so they’re left on a bit of an island right now.
The Warriors could still be really good if Jimmy Butler can get healthy in time for the playoffs this year, but they’re still a significant step behind the competition in the West. As painful as it might be, this could be a really great opportunity to bid Curry farewell, get some draft picks back, and not take on any bad salary with Charlotte still holding a mammoth trade exception they can use to absorb Curry’s contract.
Why it doesn’t make sense for the Warriors to trade Steph
At what point is it all worth it? Trading Curry and blowing up the roster is a PR nightmare, and fans don’t often want to hear about the draft capital they’d get in the future. Would two firsts and several second-round picks get it done? Would the Warriors need three firsts to entice them enough? The return would need to warrant the marketing hit the team would take, and at some point future capital just isn’t worth it, especially if you’re concerned that Charlotte is on the upswing and those picks won’t be lottery protected.
Truthfully, Charlotte won’t trade either Brandon Miller or Kon Knueppel to get this deal done. There is no planet in which the franchise parts ways with either of its two remaining star players, even to get Steph Curry. They will be playing the draft pick game, and that’s a hard sell when it means losing a Hall of Fame player like Steph.
Why it makes sense for the Hornets to trade for Steph
Curry is an ideal schematic fit for what Charles Lee and the Hornets are trying to do. This team wants to shoot threes, grab rebounds, and basically do nothing else. The potential lineup the Hornets could bring with Steph is simply comical when it comes to their potential from beyond the arc.
Steph Curry / Kon Knueppel/ Brandon Miller/ Naz Reid/ Hannes Steinbach
That’s FOUR starters who can all shoot, with Reid being a glue guy in the paint. Then you factor in the bench with Coby White and Christian Anderson Jr. being three-point specialists, with Ryan Kalkbrenner and Moussa Diabate as the requisite rebounders.
The addition of Steph basically just heightens what the Hornets do, but takes it to an entirely new level. Perhaps more importantly, it also solves the biggest problem Charlotte has right now: Public perception. The team took a mammoth hit by trading away LaMelo Ball, appearing to some fans like they don’t care to compete. I’m on the record saying I think it was ultimately a smart move that will be addition by subtraction, but that doesn’t make it inherently easier to swallow the loss of a star like Ball.
Bringing Steph Curry to Charlotte changes all that. You bring such a beloved player to Charlotte, who literally grew up in the Hornets locker room of the early-90s with his dad Dell, the same Dell Curry who now calls games for the Hornets on TV — the narrative writes itself.
Why it doesn’t make sense for the Hornets to trade for Steph
What precisely is this team trying to achieve? Moreover, what can it achieve in the Eastern Conference right now? Sure, adding Curry might be enough to get them over the hump from play-in team to playoff team — but is that really worth mortgaging a future they went through considerable pain to attain?
The biggest arrow in Charlotte’s quiver is the amount of draft capital they have in upcoming years. The 2025 NBA Draft was a home run that landed the Hornets a future cornerstone in Knueppel, but valuable role players in Kalkbrenner and Sion James. If that’s indicative of the team’s scouting potential, then giving up future assets to acquire Curry right now is a mistimed move, rather than waiting for some of these aging stars to wear out in the East, then strike in a few years when teams are rebuilding.
It also raises questions about the leadership structure of this team. One of the main reasons Coby White re-signed with Charlotte was getting a bigger role at the point, and the assumption is that removing Ball’s presence on the roster would allow for Miller and Knueppel to assume leadership roles. That all goes out the window if you bring in Steph, who would immediately make the Hornets his team.
While it might be a great basketball fit, it’s a bad organizational fit at this juncture.
What happens when the dust settles?
It would take something mammoth for the Warriors to actually part ways with Steph Curry. There have been too many years of shared emotions, too much bonding between Curry and Steve Kerr to let all this get washed out because Golden State couldn’t land LeBron James.
The smartest move would be the wait, play out the first part of the season, then see who comes available at the trade deadline who could potentially take the Warriors from a fringe playoff team and push them even further. Someone is going to blow things up once more, and the best position would be to ride Curry/Butler/Green until the wheels really fall off.
There’s always a little wiggle room though, and if there’s one team desperate enough to swing for the fences it’s the Charlotte Hornets. Never say never.
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