Stephen and Ayesha Curry. Image via: Drew Altizer Photography/Shutterstock
A $20 million pay cut is a hard thing to bring home. The $20 million is the gap between that ceiling and the extension. He pointed to gratitude, the odd scale of NBA money and the first contract he ever signed.
Stephen Curry took one in the Warriors extension, signing for roughly that much less than the top figure, and he had to tell his wife, Ayesha, about it. In an interview with ABC7 News Bay Area, Curry took on the idea that the decision must have been stressful. Then he explained why the whole household is aligned. In practical terms, the pay cut means the guard accepted less than the most he could have been paid.
His first contract was worth $44 million, at about $11 million a season, and he said this decision traces back to it. “It goes back to my very first contract, the $11 million, the four for $44 million that I signed.
People ask whether a decision like this stressed him out, Curry said, and his answer leaned on gratitude and understanding. “’Oh, you stressed out about the decision,’ and all that–the gratitude and understanding, the numbers we’re talking about, and of course there’s team valuations and the salary cap, max numbers and all,” the Warriors veteran shared. A player signs a contract based on the information available and on what feels right at the time, he said.
He also shrank the question. The figures in the NBA, from team valuations to the salary cap to max deals, can feel unreal, he admitted. To explain how he thinks about money, Curry went back to the beginning. The instinct behind that first signing is the one he cites now. By that standard, the extension is one more call made with the facts he has.