Stephen Curry is a very unusual superstar for a multitude of reasons. Some are easy to point out, while others are more abstract.
For one thing, he isn’t blessed with an intimidating stature. Even among point guards, he seems relatively modest in terms of strength.
There’s a reoccurring theme within the lore of basketball legends that the game tends to come easy to them at an early age.
It’s not to discount the amount of perseverance and determination it takes to achieve success at the highest level of athletics, but it’s hard not to feel privileged when you’re over 6 feet tall just starting middle school.
Curry wasn’t one of those players who was dunking at recess growing up. It always seemed like he was destined for greatness, but it wasn’t evident in the same way that other contemporary stars are anointed on a pedestal before even entering the league.
Basketball is an unusual sport in terms of its treatment of young players, and it’s almost as if it’s become America’s new pastime because of its adherence to values and ideals of modern society.
We live in an increasingly individualistic culture, and without delving into the merits or detractions of that mindset, no major North American team sport is as conducive to that outlook as basketball.
Baseball is rooted in tradition, and is extremely regimented. A batting order keeps any player from emphatically asserting their influence more than other players, and players are largely dependent on what their teammates do.
A basketball player can create his own shot whenever he wants to if he’s talented enough to do so, but short of hitting a home run every at-bat, a baseball player is reliant on teammates to get on base to rack up any RBIs.
Football is a chaotic setting of twenty two players all exhibiting different roles during the narrative of a play.
Not to mention the fact that they wear helmets, so there’s still a powerful anonymity to the exploits of any given football player.
Hockey players are shuffled through continuous line shifts, usually spending around 45 second intervals on the ice at any given time.
Over the course of a game, the very best players only spend about a third of the time out on the ice.
That would be like the best basketball players averaging around 16 minutes per game. Comparatively, it’s hard for a dominant NHL player to have the same impact on a game that a dominant NBA player can.
Basketball not only leaves room for assertion with only 5 players out on the court for a team, but also artistic expression.
There’s a poetic fluidity to basketball that is really evident at the highest level, and great players have long put their stamp on the game through their own unique flair.
Not only are the ascetics of basketball helpful for fostering individualism, but with the massive popularity of college basketball relative to other amateur sports (only college football has a greater sphere of influence) these players can become global basketball icons before even turning pro.
I think a big reason people have such irrational resentment for LeBron James is due to the basketball machine more than him as a person.
Before he even came into the league, he signed a $90 million contract with Nike. And this was back in 2003. There’s no other sport in the country where that’s a possible endeavor.
Just think about that… what if he had been an absolute flop in the NBA? Nobody could know for sure. $90 million is enough for multiple lifetimes, and he had never played at a tier above high school.
Even at a subconscious level, I think a lot of fans have an intense jealousy of players like James.
It’s not to say that James didn’t work hard to put himself in a position to cash in like that, but it’s hard to shake the notion that a lot of his status was handed to him as he entered the league.
It became up to him to maintain it, and a compelling argument could be made that it’s harder to do what James did with the amount of pressure behind him to live up to the hype than an anonymous player climbing the rankings of NBA stars from a lower level.
It may be harder to do what James did, but he was never an underdog. Being worth $90 million before dribbling a ball in an NBA game forfeits that label.
Fans love an underdog. They don’t want to embrace the perceived entitlement of a player being the best in the league if he was supposed to be the best in the league.
Again, this isn’t to say that James isn’t an immensely popular player all things considered, but nobody can deny that he has numerous and vocal detractors for somebody who’s as positive of an ambassador for the game of basketball as he is.
Curry represents that alternative. He wasn’t handed the keys to this league on draft night. He wasn’t proclaimed as the guy who would lead the game into its next era.
What makes Curry’s story even more compelling is that he has the type of lineage that would have made him a prime candidate for the league to play up his arrival.
The NFL has Archie and Peyton Manning, and their bond was heavily discussed and noted even before Eli came into the league.
Interestingly enough, Curry follows the same formula as Peyton Manning, building a brand of athletic success with a certain last name while being immensely better than his already talented father.
Dell Curry played for the Charlotte Hornets from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, and judging from the Hornets’ record book, you’d think he had a statue outside the Spectrum Center the way Michael Jordan has one outside the United Center.
He’s the franchise leader in games played, points, 2-point field goals, and 3-point field goals. Had Steph been drafted by the Hornets (then the Bobcats) we’d be viewing this as a Bobby Bonds/Barry Bonds dynamic.
There’s a great picture of Steph sitting on Dell’s lap during the 1992 NBA 3-point Contest as he waves to Mitch Richmond and Drazen Petrovic seated adjacent.
It makes me really emotional when I look at it, like it should be hanging in a museum or something.
Both Richmond and Petrovic are Hall of Famers, and a lot of people considered the late Petrovic to be the greatest shooter ever before Steph came along.
It’s really poetic to see a 3 year old Steph in the same frame as Petrovic, especially joined in the background by Don Nelson, who would later urge the Warriors to draft Steph just over 17 years later and serve as Steph’s first head coach at a professional level.
If you haven’t seen it, look it up, because it’s the type of picture that can uplift you on days where things seem especially hopeless in the world.
With that type of foundation in the basketball community, logic would dictate that Curry would have been highly coveted as a youth prospect. That wasn’t the case, though.
He played high school ball at Charlotte Christian School, where he was named an all-state player.
He wanted to play at Virginia Tech like his dad did, but Virginia Tech only offered him a walk-on spot.
It sounds foolish in hindsight, but this was back when Curry was a skinny 160 LBS point guard without much bulk. Teams were concerned about his durability.
Davidson College of the Southern Conference had been heavily pursuing him for years, though, and he ultimately decided to enroll with them.
It wasn’t exactly ACC competition, but Curry had a program that believed in him, and he made the most of his opportunity.
I actually remember the first time I saw Curry play in college. It was Easter weekend of 2008, and Davidson was in the NCAA Tournament.
They had been lead nearly single handedly by this kid named Stephen Curry, who looked like a really scrawny point guard.
It was absolutely remarkable. He just seemed to hit every 3-pointer he shot, no matter how ridiculous the attempt seemed.
The fact that he was putting on this show and barely looked like he was able to bench press triple digits added to the aura of it.
Little did I know that he’d eventually lead the NBA team I’ve rooted for since I was 7 years old to a championship.
There’s not many players who I have such a vivid image of the first time I saw them play. It was as if you were afraid to look away, because something amazing was about to happen.
He scored 30 points in the second half of Davidson’s 2008 NCAA Tournament game against Gonzaga, and finished the game 8-10 from 3-point range.
He scored 25 points in the 2nd half of the Georgetown game the next round, helping Davidson overcome a 17 point deficit. Georgetown was a number 2 seed.
Next round, Curry scored 33 points against 3rd seeded Wisconsin to pull Davidson into the Elite 8.
Davidson lost by just 2 points to Kansas in the Elite 8, who went on to win the championship. Curry scored 25 points in the process.
The whole thing was absolutely remarkable. It was as if he just willed the ball into the basket, which is a skill he has carried over to the Warriors.
He decided to stay in school for his junior season to develop as a point guard, and Davidson only made the NIT that next season.
For his career at Davidson, he averaged 25.3 points per game, shot 3-pointers at 41.2%, and averaged 2.1 steals per game.
There were a lot of concerns about him as a player coming out of college, though. Everybody knew he could shoot, but could he play point guard in the NBA?
He was too small to inspire much confidence as an off guard, and his outlook at the next level was largely tied to how he developed as a point guard.
Many critics feared that he couldn’t translate, and his ceiling in the NBA was as a specialty shooter unable to offer much else.
His quickness was egregiously overlooked, but the concerns about his ability to master the nuances of the point guard position were valid.
He was largely cast as that draft class’ “boom or bust” pick, and it was going to be interesting to see how fall he fell before a team found him too enticing to let slip by.
One of the lasting impressions of that 2009 draft was that the Timberwolves had the 5th and 6th overall picks, and took two point guards, neither of whom was Stephen Curry.
Ricky Rubio went 5th, and it seemed like a solid choice at the time. He was being billed as the Spanish Pete Maravich with the passes he made and the way he handled the ball.
He didn’t have Maravich’s shooting touch, but his poor jumper seemed easily correctable, although it’s now 2016 and not much progress has been made.
Johnny Flynn was picked 6th, and he has really become the unfortunate symbol of Minnesota’s failure with this draft.
Flynn had a promising rookie season, but underwent hip surgery that offseason and never regained his previous level.
There’s a lot of fascinating anecdotes surrounding the Warriors selection of Curry. Apparently Don Nelson was enamored with him, and the Warriors weren’t picking anybody else if he was available at number 7.
Steve Kerr was the general manager of the Suns at the time, and also wanted Curry really badly. He even went as far as to offer perennial all-star Amare Stoudemire for him.
Stoudemire had only one year left on his contract, and didn’t seem likely to re-sign with the Warriors after it expired. The Warriors didn’t feel secure enough to go through with the deal.
It’s an interesting hypothetical to ponder about whether they’d have done the trade if Stoudemire had agreed to sign an extension with them.
Most indications lead towards them not doing it, mainly because Nelson was that sold on Curry becoming a transcendent player.
Of course, this is the same guy who also felt that way about Shawn Bradley, but nobody’s perfect. Nellie deserves an immense amount of credit for believing in Curry.
I don’t think they win a championship without that consultation from Nelson. It might end up being the greatest call he ever made in an extremely distinguished career.
Curry immediately started to show intriguing ability in the NBA. He finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year Voting in 2010 by averaging 17.5 points and 5.9 assists per game.
In his second year, he averaged 18.6 points and 5.8 assists per game. He lead the league in free throw percentage by shooting 93.4% from the charity stripe, and also won the NBA Sportsmanship Award.
There were numerous concerns early in his career, though, both directly and indirectly connected to him.
The main one was his tendency to get injured. It really played into the narrative that he was too fragile for the NBA game.
It was part of the reason why the extension he signed before 2012-2013 season ended up being just $44 million for 4 years.
It looks like a bargain in hindsight, but there were many vocal critics who said the Warriors were overpaying for an injury-prone player.
Since then, Curry hasn’t played less than 78 games in a season, and two MVP awards for a guy making $11 million ended up being a great investment from the team’s perspective.
The season after he signed that deal was when those around the league started taking more notice of him.
He scored 54 points in Madison Square Garden, and ended up setting an NBA record for 3-pointers made for a single season.
The Warriors got back to the playoffs for the first time since 2007 that season, and beat the Nuggets in the first round.
The seeds were starting to get planted for what would turn into a historic Warriors roster, although fans didn’t quite know it yet.
A new chapter was being ushered in, and a lot of it had to do with another source of adversity that Curry battled in his early seasons with the team.
Monta Ellis was one of the last remaining pieces of the “We Believe” Warriors, and before Curry really took the reins of the team, this was Ellis’ squad.
Although the team was never all that successful with Ellis as the best player, his midrange game was explosive, and he put up lofty scoring totals.
When Curry was drafted, Ellis was upset, even going so far as to claim that there was no way they could coexist on the court.
Both were small guards, and at the time at least, had skills more suited to playing shooting guard.
Maybe Ellis was threatened because he saw the writing on the wall, and eventually he became expendable after the more lengthy Klay Thompson was drafted.
Ellis was traded to the Bucks for Andrew Bogut in early 2012, and the transaction coincided with Chris Mullin’s jersey retirement.
As Joe Lacob introduced Mullin, boos rained down from the Oracle Arena crowd, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I thought it was totally justified at the time.
My qualm wasn’t that Ellis had been traded, but I was shocked that the team couldn’t get anybody better than an injury-prone center for a guy who consistently averaged over 20 points per game.
I completely underestimated the impact that Bogut had out on the court, particularly on defense. The Warriors don’t win the championship if Ellis remained on the roster instead of Bogut.
The fortunes of the team changed drastically once Ellis was gone. I don’t know if it’s fair to attribute that to the turnaround, but it’s certainly a noticeable variable.
Curry continued to improve, and started the All Star Game in 2014. The team lost in 7 games to the Clippers in the first round of those playoffs, though.
Another monumental shift occurred that allowed the Warriors to reach the next level. That offseason, Mark Jackson was fired and replaced by Steve Kerr as head coach.
Jackson did a fantastic job of establishing a winning culture predicated on tenacious defense, but the offense was stagnant under his guidance.
With so many offensive weapons in the lineup, it was alarming that the offense looked as sluggish as it did for long stretches.
The team took off under Kerr as Draymond Green replaced David Lee as the starting power forward.
Curry had a fantastic season, winning his first MVP Award and leading the Warriors to 67 wins and an NBA championship.
Curry was now on top of the basketball world, and the success carried over to the next season, in which he became the first ever unanimous MVP and lead the Warriors to an NBA record 73 regular season wins.
Curry also became a member of the mythical 50-40-90 club, cementing his case as one of the greatest overall shooters in NBA history, if anyone was skill skeptical at that point.
The playoffs didn’t go as well for Curry, though. He missed significant time with a sprained MCL sustained in the first round against the Rockets.
In his first game back, he put up a miraculously performance in Portland in the semifinals, scoring 17 points in overtime of game 4.
Curry emphatically screamed “I’m back” to the Portland crowd after inflicting his damage, and it looked like it was going to become one of those iconic images of greatness.
Trail Blazers fans had already been subjected to Michael Jordan’s shrug and Shaquille O’Neal’s ecstatic celebration after being thrown an alley-oop from Kobe Bryant. This would be yet another image of the Trail Blazers being on the wrong end of NBA history.
Curry and the Warriors overcame a 3-1 deficit to beat the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals in the next round, and would face the Cavaliers in a rematch of the previous NBA Finals.
The Warriors went up 3-1 in the series, but unfortunately stumbled at the finish line, losing a game 7 which was tied with under 2 minutes remaining.
Curry looked severely hobbled towards the end of that series, and injuries looked like they had finally caught up to him.
Despite not winning back-to-back championships, Curry should be immensely proud of what he has been able to accomplish in his career so far.
The Warriors will look to bring home another title this upcoming season, and Curry figures to continue leading this team with tremendous poise and skill.