The Warriors will manage Stephen Curry's workload after last season's top salary bought 43 games
Steve Kerr's advice to Warriors fans this week was practical. "I would just come out and tell the fans out there to be mindful when you're buying the tickets of the schedule," he told reporters after practice Thursday, according to the New York Post. "Take a look."
He was not talking only about Stephen Curry. "We've got not just Steph but multiple vets we are going to try and manage," Kerr said. "Because it's the only way we can do this."
The Post reported that the Golden State Warriors play 15 sets of back-to-backs this season, tied for the second most in the league. It also reported that Curry, 38 and entering his 18th season, will be handled differently than ever before to keep his runner's knee from flaring up.
He ramped up more slowly than usual in the preseason and played 25 minutes for the first time in the final exhibition. "He's not yet where he wants to be," Kerr said. "But he's on track."
What Kerr did not give is a number: how many games Curry will sit, which ones, or any regular-season minutes limit. The Post's list of back-to-back dates where he might rest is the columnist's projection, not a team plan.
Last season explains why the plan matters to the payroll. Golden State paid Curry $59.6M in 2025-26, the top salary of the 435 rated players, and his production ranked 109th, per WAGE.
That production total came from 43 games, after a knee flare-up that the Post says cost him two months. Per WAGE, about $28.3M of the salary went to games he did not play.
His WAGE Score was 11 last season, down from 60 in 2024-25, a Sunk Cost reading. Availability is the clearest part of that fall, because a season production total grows with games and minutes: the figures cannot say how well he played on the nights he did play.
Kerr's plan changes the kind of absence rather than removing it. Resting on back-to-backs gives up some games on purpose in the hope of avoiding another unplanned two-month stretch like last season's. I'd argue that this is where the return on Curry's money now turns: the production behind it has to come from games played, and the wager, as I read it, is that chosen nights off cost fewer games than the knee did.
The concession is real: nothing yet says the wager pays. The preseason ramp-up was slow, and how the knee answers the new handling is unknown until the schedule tests it.