Stephen Curry's desire to win again, finish career with Warriors led to him accepting less money

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Stephen Curry is committed to keeping some of the reliable, familiar faces around him on the Golden State Warriors for the stretch run of his career.

So, Curry took a pay cut to stay put. At 38, he wants to win now, and add another title to his list before he finishes — and finishes right where it all began as a doubted, undersized point guard — with the Warriors.

That's the plan, to be sure.

“Yes I was presented the max," Curry said Monday at media day, "yes there was everything on the table."

On Friday, the 38-year-old Curry received a two-year contract extension worth $116 million — $20 million less than the maximum he could have commanded.

“It was a very, kind of, thoughtful journey, partnership of putting all the different scenarios out there. It was of interest of making sure I was here, figuring out what was in the best setup for me, for the team, for the now, for the flexibility the rest of my career,” Curry said.

"So trying to balance all of that is such a unique situation with all of the circumstances of where we've been the last four years, what's currently on the table and where we're trying to go to be competitive and give ourselves a chance.”

Curry is eager to get going at training camp. The Warriors were flying to Hawaii later Monday to hold their first practice session Tuesday. Their first preseason game is Sunday against the Clippers at the University of Hawaii campus in Honolulu. Veteran center Kristaps Porzingis is out indefinitely with a health issue.

While Golden State missed out on LeBron James in the free-agency sweepstakes, Curry is headed into his 18th NBA season determined to do what he can to make the Warriors a contender again in the talented Western Conference after last season's latest miss.

That started with his flexibility on the contract.

“We found a middle ground where he was incredibly generous in taking this deal, where he’s taking less money to help the team out because, as Steph goes, he’s as competitive as there is,” general manager Mike Dunleavy said. “He wants to win. He’s put us in a position where it gives us a little bit more flexibility to do that. So I think the middle ground was signing him up to be able to almost ensure that he’ll finish his career here while also keeping some flexibility, keeping some optionality on it, and we’ve done that.”

Last season was derailed by the loss of Jimmy Butler to a season-ending right knee injury Jan. 19 against his former Heat team that required surgery. The Warriors lost Moses Moody, too, and both guards are expected back at some point. They have progressed to very light on-court workouts and will travel with the team to Hawaii.

Butler would love to see Curry play his entire career wearing No. 30 for Golden State.

“It’s very hard to do, but it just shows how great he is, the great things that he’s done in this community, obviously for this organization, and just how beloved he is by the world, actually,” Butler said. “I see it firsthand now being his teammate.”

With his teammates long admiring his humility just as much as his dazzling shot-making from way, way back, Curry has always been about winning and not his own lofty accolades and numbers. The two-time MVP and all-time 3-point leader has embraced playing alongside star teammates such as Butler, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.

"Because he's extended this window for himself, he’s extended the window for the team, and we’re going to continue to build it because of him," Dunleavy said.

Curry has plenty to prove after a lingering right knee injury that kept him out of 27 straight games and more than two months down the stretch. Curry averaged 26.6 points, 4.7 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 1.1 steals while playing 30.9 minutes but was limited to only 43 games last season.

“It’s great to get him re-signed,” said coach Steve Kerr, who decided in May to return on a two-year deal. “We never doubted it for a minute.”

Neither did Curry himself.

“This is home, this is what we've built, this is the community that I've played in front of my entire career and being able to finish the story the right way is a big part of, I think, what I control, thankfully, hopefully health-wise as well,” he said. “I know the list, a short list of guys that have been able to do it, but reimagining what that looks like with the level that I feel like I can play at down the stretch of my career.

“There's a pride of representing the Bay, representing this franchise, that when I stepped foot here in ‘09 and what we’ve all been able to accomplish, this isn't just a ‘me’ thing, it's a ‘we.’ I want to do right by that.”

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Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. speaks during the NBA basketball team's media day, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Golden State Warriors forward Dalen Terry, left, hugs forward Yaxel Lendeborg during the NBA basketball team's media day, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Golden State Warriors forward Yaxel Lendeborg (1) poses for photos during the NBA basketball team's media day, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry poses for photos during the NBA basketball team's media day, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry poses for photos during the NBA basketball team's media day, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike was 18 when she killed a classmate in a jealous rage and became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row. Now 50, she is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday in what would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in 200 years.

Pike and her boyfriend were convicted in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer. The case got widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing, the ages of the people involved and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim’s body.

Pike does not deny her guilt, but her attorneys and supporters argue a death sentence is not appropriate for a crime committed at that age by a teen with untreated mental illness after a childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect. Slemmer’s mother wants the execution to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that he would not grant clemency. Pike’s attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to stay the execution.

Pike's attorneys said she experienced an exceptionally traumatic and abusive childhood.

Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused starting from when she was a toddler and that she was raped at ages 11 and 17. He said Pike's lawyers at the penalty phase of her trial did not present the jury with what he said was critical information about her past or argue that her age should be a consideration.

Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Pike told police she initially only wanted to fight Slemmer but ended up killing her in a frenzied attack. In her clemency petition, Pike’s attorneys said her untreated mental illness and background made her unable to “put the brakes on.”

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition.

Ferrell said more today is known about adolescent brain development and that Pike's death sentence is an outlier. He noted that Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole because of his age. He was denied parole last year. A third teen admitted to being an accessory and received probation.

In the modern death penalty era, Ferrell said, other 18-year-olds who were sentenced to death in Tennessee have since had their sentences reduced.

The Death Penalty Information Center said 275 people nationwide have been executed for crimes they committed at age 18, 19 or 20 in the modern death penalty era, but that death sentences for those in that age group have become increasingly rare.

“If Christa Pike was tried today, I do not believe a jury that knew about the documented sexual abuse and neglect she experienced as a child would sentence her to death,” Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said.

Speaking by telephone from Florida, Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, also pointed to her daughter's age and said Slemmer never got a chance to grow up.

“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez said.

Martinez said her daughter volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved roller skating and wanted to pursue a career in computers.

“She was easygoing. She was a computer geek to begin with. She and my husband would build and tear apart the computers constantly,” Martinez said. “She trusted everybody, and that was her downfall.”

She said her daughter called her from Job Corps on the night of the murder, but the call was dropping because of bad reception. When Martinez called back, her daughter had already gone out.

“Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst. Colleen’s birthday was last week. She would have been 51,” Martinez said.

The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s. Shipp, Pike's boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, into her body.

If Pike’s execution proceeds as scheduled, it would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman since 1820, Maher said.

Executions of female inmates are also rare in the U.S. Since 1976, 18 women have been executed in the country, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.

Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has put a female inmate to death. Georgia executed a woman in 2015.

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama.

In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP)

In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP)

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP, File)