Could LeBron James finish his career alongside Stephen Curry? Why a pairing feels more possible than ever

Very few legends go out on top. John Elway and Peyton Manning did it, each winning a championship with the Broncos in their final season. Michael Jordan tried to do it, hitting the game-winning jumper in the 1998 Finals before pulling the perfect into-the-sunset script out of the drawer and rewriting the ending with the Wizards a few years later. 

Magic Johnson finished second in MVP voting before losing in the Finals to Jordan’s Bulls in his final season, but that was obviously a unique situation as Johnson had no intention of returning before he received the HIV diagnosis. 

David Robinson won a title in his final year with the Spurs, but he was scoring 7 PPG by that point. Bill Russell did it as a player/coach in 1969. Joe DiMaggio won three straight World Series on his way out. Pete Sampras won the 2002 U.S. Open, his 14th Grand Slam, in his final tournament as a pro. 

So it happens. But not often. 

More often, especially in the modern age of a salary-cap sport like basketball, legends fade away as shells of themselves on forgettable teams who are, for myriad reasons, no longer capable of outfitting a championship roster. Kobe Bryant. Dwyane Wade. Dirk Nowitzki. Right now, it’s looking like Stephen Curry is on this kind of path. 

What makes the idea of Curry dying a slow, non-competitive death with the Warriors so hard to accept is that he’s still an elite player. Three years from now? That will probably be a different story. That could be more like Wade coming of the bench to close his career in Miami, or Nowitzki averaging 7 PPG on a 33-win Dallas team. But right now Curry remains at, or pretty near, the height of his powers, and the Warriors, should they choose to use them, do have the necessary resources to at least make a competitive offer for just about any available player they desire this summer. 

Which brings us to this recent comment from Andscape’s Marc Spears, who recently appeared the Bay Area’s 95.7 The Game and basically reported, after speaking with Curry, that the Warriors are going to make a splash offseason addition. 

“I think he [Curry] knows, whether it’s a Giannis, whether it’s a LeBron James, there’s going to be somebody next summer that’s going to join him, join Jimmy, join Draymond assuming he’s still there,” Spears said. “This is the Warriors. They’ve got a brand. They can quick fix.”

If you watch the whole video, Spears’ messaging is a little scattered. He’s talking in the context of Curry liking Golden State’s young guys and wanting to get them real playoff experience as if it will benefit them when the Warriors get back to competing for a title next year, and he also says whoever this mystery mercenary winds up being will be joining Jimmy and Draymond alongside Steph when, in the case of Giannis, there is no way the money can work while keeping all these guys in Golden State. 

Butler would have to go. Or Draymond and the young guys and all the draft picks. You’re not adding Giannis to the current core of the Warriors in any capacity. It would be worth it, no doubt. And the Warriors can make the Bucks a competitive offer if it gets to that point this summer. 

Just as an example, they could make their 2026 pick for the Bucks, immediately trading whoever they take (whoever Milwaukee instructs them to take) along with four more future first-round picks (2027, 2029, 2031 and 2033) for what would essentially constitute a five-pick package for Giannis. Then you make the money work with either Draymond (if he opts in to his $27.7 million player option) and young players, or Butler. 

LeBron is a different story. He’s be a free agent this summer, and if he wanted to, he could sign for the vet minimum or on one of the exceptions. Lord knows he doesn’t need the money, but all-time egos are tough. But sure, let’s say LeBron wants to finish his career playing alongside Curry. The Warriors can do it without giving up much of anything. 

Would LeBron make the Warriors a contender? I would say yes. He’s not the player he used to be, of course. Surely you’ve seen all the lineup data floating around suggesting the Lakers are better off without him. That’s not necessarily true, but it may not be untrue, either. He’s redundant next to Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves. But Curry plays off the ball and Butler prefers not to prioritize scoring it unless basically forced to. 

When guys get to be this old, one year can make a big difference. Declines aren’t always gradual. Curry and Butler and Green and James could all be one year away from looking like shells. But right now they’re all still very good players, and if the Warriors didn’t have to give up all their young peripheral part, yeah, that’s a team to reckon with. 

Again, the intrigue of a LeBron/Curry pairing is everyone is still clinging to the idea of them going out on top. Hell, maybe the Lakers will win it all this season and LeBron will walk into the sunset. Don’t count on it. Chances are he’s coming back next season for his farewell tour. It would be a cool story to pair up with his chief career rival in Curry. We saw how well they fit in the Olympics. Everyone would watch, that’s for sure. 

This rumor of LeBron and Curry pairing up has been going for a while. Every once in a while someone will fan the flame, and maybe that’s all this Spears comment is again. Most of these rumors never turn to reality, and Spears was just spitballing names to be fair. 

His point was that the Warriors are going to get someone notable, and I would tend to agree with that. They were reportedly talking to the Clippers about Kawhi Leonard at the trade deadline, and who knows what will happen with his future once the league finally rules on its investigation into the Clippers’ possible salary-cap circumvention. 

Again, the Warriors have a real package to offer someone. Whether they’ll do it is another story. They have, to this point, made moves that haven’t cost them significant future assets. That’s how they got Butler. That trade only cost them their protected 2025 pick. The post-Curry picks are the ones with real value. I would start that clock in 2029. 

Next year is Curry’s final year on this current contract. There’s no way that will be it. So he’ll sign another deal through at least 2029, but by then he’ll be past 40 years old and the window to win will likely be closed. That is why teams will covet those draft picks into the 2030s. 

Of course, that’s why the Warriors covet them, too. They are, at present, the foundation of whatever future they hope to build after Curry. That’s why this LeBron idea feels more realistic at this point than it has in the past, and in the past it hasn’t been nothing. It was widely reported that the deal was discussed a few years back at the trade deadline. 

This time it wouldn’t have to cost the Warriors all that much. He’s a free agent, so there wouldn’t be any salary to match in a trade. He’s not at a place in his career where teams are going to throw big money at him; surely not the teams with the cap room to even do that in the first place. 

He could go back to the Lakers on a small deal if he wants to stay in L.A. He could finish in Cleveland. A lot is on the table. But Golden State does make some measure of sense. Not many guys go out on top, and LeBron and Curry trying to do it together would be nothing if not box-office theater.