Sports
Warriors Solve Cap Crisis By Asking Curry To Venmo Them The Difference
By Michael Yappaport, . BSN Network. Satire.
GOLDEN STATE, Calif. -- Steve Kerr held a press conference this week to address the fact that Stephen Curry, the greatest shooter in the history of professional basketball, gave some of his salary back to the team that employs him, and Kerr wanted the public to know that he finds this admirable.
Not uncomfortable. Not embarrassing. Admirable.
Kerr described the move as "rare," which is technically accurate, because it is rare, in the same way it is rare to see someone at a restaurant tip the kitchen on the way out and then watch the owner announce a new dining room expansion. Rare. Great word. Really captures it.
Curry's pay cut, which Kerr was careful to frame as Curry's own gracious decision and absolutely not a front office ask delivered over a very long lunch, was praised as an act of sacrifice and team-first leadership. Kerr then spent the next several minutes describing, in detail, all the things the Warriors are now able to do with the money Curry is no longer receiving.
"It gives us flexibility," Kerr said, looking genuinely relieved. "Real flexibility. The kind of flexibility that opens doors."
The doors, to be clear, are ones Curry was previously blocking with his own paycheck.
Kerr did not explain what, specifically, the Warriors plan to do with the flexibility. He said they were "exploring options," which in front office language means they have a whiteboard, a conference room, and a consultant named Derek who bills by the hour and has never once watched basketball from a seat that cost less than three hundred dollars.
LeBron James, reached by nobody because nobody reached him, was not available for comment, but a league source who asked not to be identified said that if LeBron ever took a pay cut the resulting press conference would be classified as a national emergency and covered live on four networks.
For his part, Curry has not said much publicly. He is Stephen Curry. He does not need to. He has four rings, the all-time three-point record, and now, apparently, a smaller direct deposit, which the Warriors have turned into a talking point about organizational vision.
Organizational vision. That is the phrase. The vision being: our best player is subsidizing us, and we would like credit for the direction.
The Warriors have been trying to rebuild around Curry for two years now, which is a project that sounds more logical before you remember they already built a dynasty around Curry and then spent it. The cap problems they are now solving with Curry's own money were not delivered by a comet. They were delivered by contracts, extensions, and a front office that treated the championship window like a revolving door and kept spinning it until the glass cracked.
Kerr was asked if it was strange to publicly praise a player for taking less money while simultaneously describing how much better things will be now that the money is freed up. He said it was a nuanced situation.
It is not a nuanced situation.
Stephen Curry funded the team's cap flexibility. The team is excited about the cap flexibility. The team would like you to know that Curry is a rare and wonderful person for having funded it. This is the whole press conference. This is all of it.
The Warriors will use the flexibility wisely, or they will use it the way they have used every previous financial advantage, which is to say expensively and with great confidence, and then Kerr will hold another press conference in eighteen months describing the situation as nuanced.
Curry will probably still be there. Probably still shooting. Probably still the best reason anyone in the Bay Area sets an alarm.
Somebody should really Venmo that man back.
The story we are making fun of: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25505956-steve-kerr-addresses-stephen-currys-rare-contract-paycut-emphasizes-cap-space-flexibility