Stephen Curry Says Not Boycotting 2014 Game 'One of My Biggest Regrets'

Stephen Curry is one of the most accomplished players in the NBA today, but he says he wishes he could have handled at least one moment differently.

In an interview for the new cover story for Rolling Stone, the four-time NBA champion said he feels remorse for not doing more to protest against Donald Sterling during the 2014 playoffs. At the time, Sterling was the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, and the team was squaring off against Curry's Golden State Warriors.

Sterling was embroiled in controversy during the playoffs that year following the publication by TMZ of leaked private audio recordings of racist comments he made to his former mistress V. Stiviano. Sterling was eventually forced to sell the Clippers, banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million.

Curry told Rolling Stone he and his teammates had discussed walking off the court after the tipoff. Instead, he and his teammates joined the Clippers in their protest of wearing warmup shirts inside out and discarding the garments at midcourt before the game started.

"One of my biggest regrets is not boycotting the game," Curry said to the magazine. "That was a moment to leverage beyond anything we probably could have said."

Rolling Stone went on to detail how Curry had talked with Chris Paul of the Clippers about an appropriate way for the Warriors to stand against Sterling's alleged racism. In the end, the decision was made to follow the Clippers' lead with the jersey protest, since they were the team most aggrieved by their owner.

Sterling's name has been in the news recently following the NBA's punishment of Robert Sarver, the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury. On Tuesday, the NBA suspended Sarver from all basketball activities for one year and fined him $10 million after an investigation found he created a hostile workplace environment through racist and misogynist behavior.

Some people within the basketball community felt Sarver's punishment didn't extend far enough in comparison to Sterling's. Former NBA star Richard Jefferson, who was raised in Phoenix, said he felt Sarver should be banned for life.

"I do not believe that Robert Sarver should be running an NBA team," Jefferson said Tuesday on ESPN's NBA Today. "He was insulting fans, he was insulting female employees, he was literally doing every single thing in an HR meeting that you do not do. And he was the head of this organization."

Jamal Crawford, who played one season for the Suns in 2018-19 before retiring in 2020, tweeted "Sterling 2.0" after news broke about Sarver's punishment.

Newsweek reached out to Curry for comment.