Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’re having a great day and are ready for the three day weekend ahead of you.
The Golden State Warriors got their work done a bit early this week, didn’t they?
Stephen Curry has reportedly signed a one-year, $62.6 million extension with the team for the 2026-27 season. He’ll join the NBA’s $500 million club and remain a Warrior through the remainder of his deal unless he asks out.
That’s great news for Warriors fans out there who thought Curry might dash for greener grass after a couple of underwhelming seasons in a row for the Warriors. While that’s still not completely outside the realm of possibility, it’s become a lot less likely now.
What is completely cooked with this extension, though, are hopes that he and LeBron James would ever play together.
Fans have almost always fantasized about the two defining players of this era of hoops playing together. Steph at point with LeBron on the wing? That’d be a nightmare, even in their twilight years. Curry is still the game’s best shooter and James knows how to manipulate defenses better than almost anyone in NBA history.
Their Olympic stint together this summer only added fuel to the fire for those thoughts. And when Steph removed “Warriors guard” from his Instagram bio? Whew, boy. Things were getting crazy.
But now, Curry is locked in. He could theoretically be traded for, sure. But it’d take half the Lakers’ roster to get a deal done without a third team while also keeping Anthony Davis and James on the roster. Plus, they don’t have the draft capital or young prospects the Warriors would be looking for in return. Much of the same could be said on the Warriors end of things if, say, James were to request a trade.
At this point, we know that’s not happening. Neither of these guys are going anywhere. The teams they’re with now are the teams they’re going to be finishing their careers with. You never say never — this is the NBA. You never know.
But if you were holding out any hope for a union between these two, you should probably let that hope dissipate now.
Do us justice, Netflix
Speaking of LeBron, I cannot wait to watch Netflix’s Starting Five docuseries coming out this year.
The docuseries is set to release ahead of the NBA season, according to the Hollywood Reporter. It’s been in the making for the last year. The series follows James, Anthony Edwards, Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler and Domantas Sabonis through the 2023-24 season.
We’re going to see LeBron crack the 40,000 points record. We’re going to see Jayson Tatum win his first championship. We’re going to see Anthony Edwards be…Anthony Edwards. That should be fun stuff.
Netflix has been cooking with sports documentaries lately. Drive to Survive is an incredible production around Formula 1 racing. That sounds like it’s kind of the basis for what this series is, except for it’s not happening live during the season.
This doesn’t need to be as good as that. But if it gets close? I’ll be satisfied.
Shootaround
— Kiyan Anthony’s quote about Bronny James making it to the NBA is…kind of weird? Idk what to make of this. Bryan Kalbrosky has more.
— Speaking of Bronny, he can’t call his dad “Dad” on the court. Here’s Andrew Joseph with more.
— The NBA 2k25 ratings are out and these are…kind of disrespectful to Joel Embiid.
— Could Caitlin Clark be the WNBA’s MVP? Nah. But Rebecca Lobo thinks she might be in the conversation.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading Layup Lines today. Have a fantastic weekend. Let’s do this again next week.