The Impossible One
Stephen Curry rise to the being one of the best players in the league is hugely improbable. His incredibly slight build and spaghetti like ankles meant that there were serious fears that he could deal with an entire season of bruising NBA season. His technical ability when making plays and bombing away from deep meant that his so called physical limitations were pointless. It was simply impossible to stop a great shooter from dropping it in from deep. The man who was passed over by Nike in a huge commercial blunder from the Oregon company became one of the most marketable and successful players in the league.
The story of Curry’s childhood is one of that most people are familiar. His father, Dell Curry was the original sharpshooter who was twenty years too early in terms of his playstyle. Curry senior was part of the talented Hornets teams of the 1990s before transitioning into a welcome veteran role for a Raptors franchise that was still grappling with the realities of the NBA. Because of this, Stephen Curry as a child spent a lot of time around future NBA stars like Vince Carter. It is also likely that Steph inherited his father’s regimented approach to the three-ball. For his career, Dell Curry shot 40% from three, a mark which would put him in the upper echelons of today’s NBA. In the 1990s where there was an emphasis on tough defence and finishing at the rim, it was unheard. There were only a few players who could touch this mark, namely Reggie Miller and Steve Kerr.
Stephen Curry during his formative years was a phenom in both Toronto and Charlotte. He consistently led his teams to state championships but there were certain weaknesses in Curry’s arsenal. Even at an age where size was less important, he could be bullied by taller and bigger players which meant that a lot of colleges were wary of this talent. Most college do not try and target a player who skills are built off their shooting.
College Basketball is incredibly ruthless when recruiting talent to fill out their rosters in order to win March Madness and bring even better players to their schools. Most schools aim for a certain archetype of player, the athletic monster who has a wingspan that most players can only dream of. No coach would want a fairly frail-looking 160-pound guard for the fear that it would be a wasted roster spot. Stephen Curry was enamoured with Virginia Tech, his father’s alma mater but they would only offer the slight Charlotte guard, a walk-on spot. In the end, Curry opted for Davidson, a school that has a proud history during the 1960s of reeling off consistent 20-win seasons. But Davidson was not the type of powerhouse like a Duke or Kentucky that most players went to in order to make sure that they made the NBA.
During Curry’s first season, it was clear that he had something unique about the way he played basketball. Curry broke the NCAA record for three-pointer in his first season of collegiate basketball. He averaged around 21.5 points on very good efficiency including 40% from three and over 85% at the line. However, there were a few weaknesses in his game, namely Curry’s ability to finish at the rim. Stephen struggled in the forest of limbs and could rarely power his way past defenders in order to finish plays he made.
Even though Stephen Curry had a very good season at Davidson, the type of season that would draw serious consideration from teams in the league, nobody wanted the skinny guard from Charlotte. There were still serious concerns about whether Stephen Curry could hold up for an entire season physically. It was a strange concern of teams in the league at this point when it was proven that high-IQ, less athletic guards could succeed. At the time of Curry’s term at Davidson, Steve Nash and Tony Parker were blazing a path through the NBA. Nash pioneered one of the truly revolutionary movements in Phoenix while Tony Parker captained a Spurs’ team that was an ominous machine that stacked championships like nobody else in the league.
In the next few years, Curry continued his development at Davidson and became a much more well-rounded player instead of purely being a long-range bomber who played the point because he was too small for the two. His assist numbers came up but there was also another change in Curry’s game, he gained some much needed height. During his freshman season, Stephen Curry was about 6'1 which meant that he could be bullied by taller defenders. Curry jumpshot meant that some of these physical limitations could be overcome but even still, it was tricky. By his final year at Davidson, Curry was 6'3 and physical disadvantages which had proved difficult for his entire adolescence were finally overcome. In his last year at Davidson, he averaged 28.6/5.6/2.5. Despite the fact, Curry was not a great individual defender, he became above average in terms of defending as part of a team. He became much better at jumping the passing lanes and his small, active arms were talented at stealing the ball from opponents.
The constant improvement that Steph showed at Davidson garnered much NBA attention and led to a belief among the media that Curry could be a lottery pick. In 2009, there was a stacked draft class which included Curry, Harden, Rubio and Blake Griffin as headline names. As drafts go, it is probably one of the best in human history and it was a chance for talent lacking teams to pick up a future cornerstone who could be built around. One such team was Minnesota.
Two years prior to the 2009 NBA draft, Minnesota took the decision to trade the best player in their history to the Boston Celtics. Kevin Garnett left the team and Minnesota was back to hunting through the lottery for talented players who could be kept under team control for the next few years. In 2008, the T-Wolves took Kevin Love, a veritable double-double machine and needed to get more talent in 2009 in order to build a future play-off contender. It was expected that with the fifth and sixth pick that the Wolves would take a one-guard and a two-guard. However, Minnesota had one of the most unusual NBA executives running the show in 2009.
David Kahn is an aberration in comparison to most NBA executives, he did not come from a traditional basketball background. Kahn was a business executive for the Pacers in the early 2000s who largely dealt with sponsorship deals before moving on to owning several NBA D-League teams. For Glen Taylor to appoint David Kahn after Kevin McHale, it was seen as very strange. Nevertheless, it was believed that David Kahn would make an astute choice as GM and help to rebuild the Timberwolves.
It was reported by many media outlets that Minnesota were planning on taking the Spanish sensation that was Ricky Rubio. Ricky Rubio had set the internet and basketball world alight with his passing ability that he displayed as a teenager in Euroleague and Spanish basketball. It was considered to be a very good pick for Minnesota as Rubio was a defensive minded point guard who could thread the ball through gaps that most players could not see. However, Ricky Rubio had some serious flaws as a player. Rubio had issues shooting the ball from range and needed someone in the back-court next to him who could be used to space the floor. The other issue relating to Rubio was that he still had another year to play in Spain and there were worries that Rubio would not come over at the end of his contract as is what happened with Fran Vasquez and the Orlando Magic.
David Kahn then made another highly puzzling move which was to draft Jonny Flynn and completely ignore the college phenom from Davidson. Jonny Flynn was hugely talented at the college level which could give credence to why Kahn picked him but Curry just seemed like something else, he was hugely different to the crop of NBA one-guards like Chris Paul, Steve Nash and Deron Williams. There was also a natural fit in Minnesota for Curry in Minnesota, he would join a young core with a double-double machine in the form of Kevin Love and a pass-first guard in the form of Rubio who would feed Curry three point buckets.
Instead the Golden State Warriors selected Stephen Curry with the ninth pick of the 2009 NBA draft, it was only fitting that a disciple of Don Nelson took the next evolution of pace and space in the NBA. Larry Riley could see past the warnings that Curry was not built for an 82-game and saw a scoring machine who could fuel the type of high-paced offences that Nelson had constructed with ‘Run TMC’ and the Mavs of the early 2000s. It was not instant success for Curry, the Warriors as a team were not successful. It had one play-off series victory since the turn of the century and cycled through players searching for direction. The owner Chris Cohan made big-money signings like Corey Maggette and resigned Andris Biedrins to a long-term contract but it never seemed like the team was settled.
Moreover, there were also some concerns about Curry’s fit next to Monta Ellis. Monta Ellis was another ball-dominant guard who needed the ball in order to make plays, for the Warriors he was the epitome of a high-volume scorer. The concern was that there would be a lack of ball movement within the team as the backcourt was primarily shoot-first rather than looking to involve the entire team.
Personally Curry was an instant success who showed that all criticisms of his playstyle were unfounded. He continued to bomb away from deep efficiently while being an active play-maker within Don Nelson’s system. However for a few years, the Warriors were lost. The team was incredibly injury prone and never seemed to have time to gel under a Nellie-ball system. Curry himself was not immune to the injury bug, he was bitten with a serious ankle sprain during the 2011–2012 season. The sprain required surgery and meant that the Warriors rising star was ruled out for almost an entire season.
Again, there were questions about whether a player like Curry who required on his quickness would be the same player after another surgery on his right ankle. It was obvious that this type of surgery was particularly high-risk, the surgery related to an area that had already been injured a year prior. Moreover, Curry required quick changes of direction in order to beat screens and turn the corner into quick three-pointers. Among those who followed the league, there was a risk that Curry would never be the same player. These discussions relating to Curry’s health were especially important given the fact he was eligible for an extension in the 2012 off-season. When Curry was healthy, he had flashed the potential to be an elite-level player in the league, the injuries had cast some doubt into a Warrior vision that had become clearer with the new ownership.
The Lacob ownership group had a clear goal in mind when they purchased the Warriors. Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber wanted to build a dynasty that was Celtic-like in its dominance. They quickly realised that the best model would be to acquire talented veteran players and surround them with talented younger players who could grow into being the future core of the team. They already had players like David Lee and Monta Ellis under roster who were the talented veterans and a player in the form of Curry who could break into the elite bracket. There was a clear distinction between the Mandalay group and Chris Cohan, there was open ambition and a sense of stability for the team.
In 2011, the Warriors went out and acquired Curry his running mate. Klay Thompson was another son of a famous NBA player, he also had siblings who were pro-ballers and was a three-college player like Stephen Curry. Klay Thompson also had deadly accuracy from long-range and was a low-usage player. Thompson was more than happy to run through screens and make cuts to score his points, it was evident that he was a better fit for Curry in comparison to Monta Ellis.
However, it was in the 2012 season in which the Warriors began to manifest. The team moved on from Monta Ellis in a trade for Andrew Bogut, the Aussie big from Milwaukee. The front-office made another smart move by extending Curry’s contract. The contract itself was just $44m over a four-year period, relatively little in comparison to some of the other point guards in the league. The crucial point was that the contract meant that the Warriors retained cap flexibility for the foreseeable future which could be used to pursue a high-level free agent like a Kevin Love or even a player like LeBron James. The final smart move was drafting Draymond Green in the draft.
At Michigan State, Draymond was an undersized forward who had shown an ability to defend effectively. However, he had spent four years at MSU in order to round his skill-set as a big man. NBA teams are wary of drafting seniors as they tend to have lower ceiling that freshmen phenoms and therefore Green fell massively in the draft despite the fact he turned in a strong season at MSU. The main issue was that Green could not really be projected against any other NBA players who had previously played the forward spot in the league. The most recent comparison to Draymond would have been Ryan Gomes, a journeyman player who had been picked by the Celtics with the 50th pick in 2006. Gomes spent multiple years at Providence and was able to be an instant impact for the bad Celtics teams that existed in the pre-Big Three era. The common aspect in both players was that it seemed that there would be a low ceiling for undersized power forwards.
The core for the future had set itself without many people realising how this group of players would change the way that basketball is played and teams compete against each other. Steph Curry is ground-breaking in terms of his three-point ability, he can draw doubles thirty feet away from the basket which creates simple baskets inside. Klay Thompson is the ultimate 3&D wing with his ability to snipe and then lock down a player like Kyrie on the very next possession. Draymond Green is a defensive anchor who would prove that verticality and athletic freaks were not the only ways to defend.
The Warriors core had a lot of future potential but the sweet-shooting team still had hurdles to overcome including the potential trade of Klay Thompson. Thompson was seen to be a very good player but there was internal doubts among the Warriors’ basketball operations management about Thompson’s growth potential as a player. Klay was already a polished three-pointer but he lacked a certain amount of creativity in terms of working within the Warriors’ offensive scheme. Another potential doubt that faced the Warriors’ brain trust was that they needed to bring balance to their front-court. The Warriors felt that they required a talented big man who could create out of the post, Andrew Bogut was a brilliant defender but was limited offensively. He was a grinder rather than the offensive arsenal that the Warriors’ felt they needed down low.
Bob Myers legitimately explored trading Klay Thompson for an extremely talented big man out of Minnesota by the name of Kevin Love. Love at the time had been quietly made available to offers by Flip Saunders who sought to overhaul the franchise and bring success to Minnesota for the first time since the Kevin Garnett era. In theory, the trade would have solved the Warriors front-court problem. It would have meant that they would have a legitimate double-double machine who could hoover up all missed shots and create many second chance opportunities. It would have meant that the Warriors would have had a more defined ceiling by being closer to traditional squad-building methods. The team with Love would not have the same ability to go nuclear for quarters at a time like a team with Klay Thompson in the back-court. It would have also meant that the Warriors could not hide Curry on defense and there would be some serious defensive liabilities with both Curry and Love being on the court at the same time.
However, one man refused the trade entirely and threatened to resign if Bob Myers and Joe Lacob did not listen to his advice. Jerry West is possibly the most experienced front-advisor in the NBA. He has worked on hugely successful teams, rebuilding sides and in the Warriors, an ascendant force. West had also seen all of the shifts in the league in terms of playstyle since his time as a player in the 1970s, he truly believed that Thompson with his ability to score and defend would be an integral piece to the Warriors. He could feel the Warriors’ potential without it being completely tangible. There was evidence that the Warriors were a good side who could win playoff series but nothing concrete that indicated that they would be one of the greatest dynasties in the league. Jerry West pushed his chips to the centre of the table and the Warriors’ senior management folded and refused to trade Thompson.
The other key issue was the leadership of Mark Jackson. Mark Jackson had been instrumental in terms of developing Warriors’ players into being better players, it was clear that Thompson had improved exponentially on the defensive end under the coaching of Jackson. He had also managed to get the Warriors into the play-offs for the first since the ‘We Believe’ Warriors that were led by Baron Davis. That being said Mark Jackson’s success as the coach of the Warriors came with serious issues.
Jackson was a paranoid coach who did not trust his coaching staff to do their job. He relegated Brian Scalabrine to the Santa Cruz Warriors during the play-offs for ‘coaching differences’. The truth that came out later that Scalabrine was relegated to the D-League affiliate as Jackson was scared that the former Celtics cult hero had designs on the head coaching position of the Warriors. The tension between the coaching staff was not just an isolated incident, there were further incidents involving a senior assistant by the name of Darren Erman who had been recording conversations between players, management and the coaching staff. This was just another incident which added to the dysfunctional atmosphere that surrounded the Warriors.
Another issue that came with Jackson was that he alienated players with his coaching style. There were a lot of talk around the Bay Area beat writers that Andrew Bogut was treated differently to the prodigious talents of Curry and Thompson. This would be expected as there is a certain hierarchy for players within a team but the reason for why Bogut was treated different did not stem from on-court reasons. Mark Jackson was a devout Christian and naturally gravitated towards players like Curry and Thompson who followed their faith closely. For a player like Bogut, who is an atheist, it meant that there was some distance and a slight strain in his relationship with his head coach.
Another example of alienation was in regards to Festus Ezeli. Mark Jackson motivated players by playing them off each other, he wanted to fire the players on his team by making them angry. Festus Ezeli was accused, by his head coach, of cheering the opposing side in the hope that he would look better in comparison to his team-mates. Ezeli was nothing but a team player for the Warriors and broke down crying during a players-only meeting in which he was called out on these allegations. It totally destroyed Ezeli’s confidence and the trust in which players implicitly place in their coaches.
Another issue was that Jackson began to push away key management figures in the Warriors front office, Jerry West was banned from practice and it was made clear that the practice gym was Jackson’s domain. It was a cocktail of tensions which meant that the Warriors became a good side that consistently made the play-offs however it meant that there was a lot of dysfunction that could prevent the Warriors from being a great side. Lacob and Myers took the decision to fire Mark Jackson and replace him with another ex-pro.
Steve Kerr at the time had not coached basketball professionally but he had worked in the Suns front-office during the Seven Seconds or Less era with Mike D’Antoni and Steve Nash. Kerr had also played under Coach Pop and the Zen Master, Phil Jackson, he knew how to create offences around players which would be efficient and high-scoring.
For Curry, the appointment of Steve Kerr is one of the reasons why Curry became one of the best players in the league. Steve Kerr designed a motion offence that would run elevator schemes and plenty of screens that would get Curry open three point buckets. In this type of offence, shooters like Curry and Thompson were given the green-light to shoot the ball from deep as long as it was a good shot. It is rare that a coach and a player connect to the level that Kerr and Curry have in terms of just pure point production.
For Steph, it meant that he exploded into the NBA elite and became arguably one of the scariest opponents for teams as there was no real way of guarding Curry. He could pull-up from half-court and there would be a good chance that he would make this kind of a shot. Curry could also dance his way inside and finish craftily at the rim. By the time of Curry’s MVP season, he had evolved from a score-first one guard to being the ultimate team leader for a franchise that ran off Curry’s flair offensively.
In terms of team-mates in the NBA, Steph Curry is highly regarded for the fact that he is not arrogant and lacks the inflated ego that can come with superstar players. He consistently made the right plays which is what made the ‘Death Lineup’ revered among NBA pundits. The ‘Death Lineup’ was stumbled upon by the Warriors in the 2015 NBA Finals when the team was being dragged into a battle that they could not win. Cleveland with LeBron James played a bruising iso-style that emphasised each possession and stingy defense. The physical style took apart Golden State’s sweet-shooting and motion offense. David Blatt and LeBron has the intention to beat the Warriors bloody with physical play and win the series with tough gritty play and it worked. The Cavs led the series 2–1 and Golden State’s season was thrown into doubt until a little known intern by the name of Nick U’Ren came up with a devastatinf solution.
Cleveland planted two bigs in the lane who were resolute defenders inside and rebounded the ball at a level that the Warriors could not match. U’Ren had the idea to run five perimeter players who could bring Mozgov or Tristan Thompson away from the rim and create mismatches that a player like Curry could exploit. As schemes go, the basic idea was that the Warriors would out-run the Cavaliers and force Cleveland to respond by also going small. It was not the first time that a small-ball lineup had been used in the NBA Finals, Coach Poppovich frequently used Boris Diaw at centre during the series that the Spurs played against Miami. But it was the first time that small-ball was designed this way. The Warriors relied on a transcendent player in the form of Curry to make plays, an undersized power forward to play high-level defense and three interchangeable wings in the form of Iguodala, Barnes and Thompson.
The strategy had its risks, it was possible that Cleveland would bull-doze their way through screens and experiment with their own small-ball centre lineup that would have ran James at centre with three interchangeable wings in the form of Miller, Smith and Shumpert and a tough gritty guard in the form of Dellavedova. If Cleveland chose to run this lineup, it would have meant that the prospects of the Warriors’ first ring would be less likely. Instead, the ‘Death Lineup’ played perfectly. The pace and space exposed Cleveland’s deficiencies, the plodding bigs could not keep up with Iguodala or Draymond on the perimeter. The ability to pull out a lineup that the Cavs could not match offensively meant that the series became elementary for the Warriors. They won the next three games and Curry finally doused himself in champagne. The player who many expected to last no more than a few seasons in the league was now MVP and an NBA champion.
The play of the Warriors created a new number one in the Western Conference and a multitude of classic series. OKC vs GSW, Western Conference Finals 2016, GSW vs CLE Finals 2016, GSW vs CLE Finals 2017 and GSW vs HOU 2018. Curry was at the centre of the Warriors becoming the dynasty that the Mandalay group desired when they purchased the team from Chris Cohan. His scoring and ability to read the game led the Warriors to championships however it was Curry’s leadership ability that was arguably the most important reason for the dynasty.
In 2016, the Warriors came from 3–1 to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in a classic series. Kevin Durant, a former MVP for the Thunder was entering free agency in 2016 and it was rumoured that he was unhappy with the team. He disliked the fact that the Thunder never seemed to make good on their potential and he disliked playing with Russell Westbrook. Westbrook and Durant was an incredibly duo but it never seemed fun for either player. There was clear distance between Westbrook and Durant. The Warriors were a close-knit organisation in which there did not seem to be any form of hierarchy among the players as a result of Curry’s lack of ego. The key thing was the team was fun and every player seemed to enjoy celebrating each other’s success.
In Durant’s free-agency meetings in the Hamptons, Curry sold him on the fact that Durant would love playing for the Warriors. Steph Curry also made it clear that there would be no scoring options, it was a case of feeding the hot hand on the night. In Oklahoma, Durant had played in a turn-based offence that did not feed the hot hand, it prioritised spreading shots between its stars. The key point that Curry made was that the Warriors could become a truly dominant force if Durant signed with them, a team that had already won a ring could win three or four with Durant. KD signed with the Warriors.
From childhood, Stephen Curry was always under-regarded, there were always questions relating to his undeniable talent. The skinny guard from Davidson is now a three-time NBA champion and two-time MVP. He has answered all of the questions and is now solely chasing legends of the game, his legacy as a game-changer is established. Wardell Stephen Curry is a force of nature and he’ll go down in the pantheon of great point guards.
