Stephen Curry is no longer a sneaker free agent. The NBA star has agreed to a 10-year shoe deal with Chinese company Li-Ning, a move he confirmed on social media after ending his 13-year partnership with Under Armour in November.
The deal gives Curry Brand a wider runway. It extends the line globally and reaches beyond shoes into basketball products, athleisure, the ability to sign athletes under the brand and a full golf line, a broadening that comes at a moment when Curry has been the most visible name in the sneaker market without a home label.
That visibility only grew this season. Curry spent the 2025-26 season wearing sneakers from nearly a dozen different brands, turning every game into a kind of open tryout for the biggest footwear players in the sport. In April, he put many of those pairs up for auction to benefit his Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, a reminder that the shoe chatter around him has also carried real charitable value.
The move also lands with a clean business logic. Li-Ning already has a strong basketball presence, with Jimmy Butler, CJ McCollum and D'Angelo Russell on its roster, and Dwyane Wade also sponsored by the company. Beyond the NBA, it backs marathons, the Chinese table-tennis team, a 3v3 badminton tournament, and works with the Chinese Badminton Association and China Badminton Super League. Curry instantly becomes its most prominent global basketball face.
Still, the split from Under Armour hangs over the deal. Curry said the company believed in him early and gave him room to build something bigger than a shoe, and he stressed that the mission behind Curry Brand has not changed, only grown stronger. That matters because the new partnership is being sold as continuity, not reinvention, even as it marks the start of a different chapter for one of basketball’s most marketable names.
What remains unclear is when fans will actually be able to buy the new products. The agreement is now in place, but no release date has been announced for Curry’s Li-Ning line, leaving the next step to the rollout rather than the signing itself.
