The last time Stephen Curry was a Nike athlete, LeBron James was on the Miami Heat, David Stern was the commissioner of the NBA and Cooper Flagg was 6 years old.
So NBA fans experienced a sight long forgotten ahead of the Golden State Warriors’ game on Friday, Curry’s first game since ending his 12-year partnership with Under Armour. Now a sneaker free agent, Curry warmed up against the San Antonio Spurs wearing the “Mambacita” Nike Kobe 6.
However, Curry switched back to a pair of white Curry 12s for gametime.
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Curry and Under Armour announced a parting of ways on Thursday, with the former MVP’s Curry Brand separated from the company. Under Armour will still be releasing the Curry 13 in February, but Curry is officially independent from a company that has been a visible part of his dominance over the past decade.
Stephen Curry is a free agent (sneaker-wise). (AP Photo/Gerald Leong)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Curry originally signed with Nike upon entering the NBA, but his move to Under Armour in 2013 has become lore for the sneaker company. At the time, Under Armour was a smaller but rising company while Nike enjoyed nearly complete dominance in the sneaker space. Curry opted to go with the company ready to make him the face of the company, and not the one that infamously forgot to remove Kevin Durant’s name from a repurposed PowerPoint slide.
So starting in the 2013-14 season, Curry was an Under Armour athlete and wore shoe after shoe bearing his name. He launched Curry Brand with Under Armour in 2020 and received more than a salary’s worth of money in company stock in 2023.
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It was theoretically a lifetime deal, but didn’t even last through the end of Curry’s career.
