Ainge ‘always’ requested that the Warriors trade Curry to the Celtics

During an interview with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on The Woj Pod, former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers stated that then-Boston Celtics head of basketball operations Danny Ainge expressed interest in trading for star point guard Stephen Curry.

Myers, who led Golden State’s front office from 2012 to 2023, was present for all four of the Warriors’ recent championships. While he wasn’t with the team to draft Curry in 2009, he certainly helped fill in the right pieces around the nine-time All-Star. The two-time scoring champ is credited with changing the game of basketball thanks to his ability to knock down deep 3-pointers at an alarming rate — 42.6 percent on his career.

Toward the end of the podcast, Wojnarowski asked Myers if anyone actually tried to make a serious trade for Curry after he won his first MVP and championship, both of which came in the 2014-15 season.

“One guy took a shot, you know who he is,” Myers said, inferring Ainge. “Look, I never was upset with anyone asking. A GM’s job is to mine for trades, that’s a GM’s job. Ainge was the one that was always asking.”

Going into the 2015-16 season, the Celtics were rolling with Isaiah Thomas for the second year as their starting point guard. Playing in just 21 games with the Celtics the year prior thanks to a mid-season trade from the Phoenix Suns, Thomas really started to take advantage of his opportunity in the 2015 season, posting 22.2 points, 6.2 assists, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.1 steals per game, gaining his first All-Star nod. Should Ainge have gotten Curry, the King of the Fourth Quarter would have likely never existed — at least in Boston.

“Ainge recommended me for the [Warriors] job,” Myers added. “I owed it to Ainge, I owed my career to him, so I can’t be upset with Ainge. We just laughed [about Ainge trying to acquire Curry], we have a great relationship, so it was funny, but you got to ask. Everybody knew that wasn’t happening, so it was kind of a good laugh.”

After winning his first title, the then-27-year-old Curry would go on to make another leap in the 2015-16 season, posting 30.1 points, 6.7 assists, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.1 steals per game on 45.4 percent from deep.

While Ainge and the Celtics weren’t able to pull off a blockbuster trade for Curry, they still settled on acquiring center David Lee in exchange for Chris Babb, Gerald Wallace, and a TPE. Lee would be released later that same season.

In hindsight, Ainge’s inability to acquire Curry may have been a blessing in disguise as Boston would use their stashed draft picks to select Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum in the next two drafts.