The common misconception is that people want to see something different and enjoy seeing the underdog prevail. When in reality neither of those things are true, and it is more evident to me year by year that this is what plagues the legacy and respect of Stephen Curry.
From the beginning of Stephen's career as a basketball player he has always been undervalued and appreciated only by a small minority. In High School he was always overlooked by scouts and college head coaches. It was always deemed that he was too little, too skinny, not athletic enough and honestly just didn't look like the prototypical basketball player. He was always looked at as somewhat as the forever little guy trying to attempt at playing a big boy to grown man's game.
He was not heavily recruited out of high school to any top D-I colleges and ultimately ended up going to Davidson. At Davidson he was pretty much the only player capable of making a significant difference to a basketball game on the collegiate level. His stint at Davidson pretty much reminded me of the years Allen Iverson played with the 76ers, where clearly AI was the offense and everyone else was there to help him score more and play defense. What immediately popped out about Steph was his great gift of shooting. Through that his stock rose as he was able to propel Davidson in to the Elite 8 round of the NCAA tournament, which still today is their greatest achievement as a college basketball program.
However, with all of this first time ever achievements, the book on Curry was still the same. All he can do is shoot. Now, with that in mind the great Naismith held one objective to the game of basketball when he created it, which was to put the ball the through the goal or hoop. So if your book on Steph Curry begins with "he is only a shooter but can shoot at an astronomical cliff", he is doing exactly what the game of basketball is intended to do arguably better than anyone we have ever seen (and this is just college Steph Curry). Scouts still overlooked him in the NBA saying that he could not cut it in the pros, he can't defend, not strong enough, no athleticism and basically can not be great on this level.
Imagine that now, someone telling you that Steph Curry at his best is only a sixth man, you would call that person insane and tell them to stop talking about basketball for the rest of their life. So because of these NBA scouts Steph falls in the NBA draft all the way to the 7th pick. His first few years in the NBA were hit with injuries to his knees and ankles so soon what scouts were saying about him being too fragile for the NBA was being proved correct. However, Steph still showed flashes of the player he would become with his electrifying shooting ability during those years of bad health.
So speed up to the present day we now know Steph is a two time league MVP and only unanimous MVP. He is a three time NBA Champion. All time Finals leader in three pointers made. All time leader in a finals single game three pointers made. All time post season leader in three pointers made. Holds the record for the most three pointers made in a regular season. The leader of the greatest regular season team ever with a 73-9 record. Along with being one of the most proficient and efficient volume shooters from every level of the basketball court this game has ever seen. Ultimately the summation is that when it comes to putting the ball in the basket, arguably outside of Michael and Kareem, nobody does it better than Steph in various ways.
But what happens when you are so great that people start to feel insecure being next to you is that they look for anyway to undercut your achievements. They continue to say that all you can do is shoot. The say you can't play defense, when you are consistently ranked amongst the best in defensive ratings, win shares and steals. They malign you for losing the NBA Finals to what the media says is the greatest basketball player ever, next to Jordan in LeBron James, because that great player is able to come back from being down 3-1 in that series. They say you are not clutch because you go 0-8 in last second shot attempt moments to win or tie a game, when you are being doubled and tripled team by guys who are all 4 inches or more taller than you. They say you don't have what it takes because you can't propel a team to a victory that has every valued player suffering serious injuries where essentially you are playing 1 against 5 every night, and even when you average 32,5,5 in that same series its overlooked because you lost. However, LeBron James gets praised for the numbers he puts up in every losing effort in the Finals.
They do all of this with intentional disregard of recognizing all of the things that may have led to your short comings. And the reason why is because deep down, if people were to be honest about Steph, all the people who pegged him out to be useless in this game called basketball would have to challenge their abilities to evaluate talent and the understanding of the game.
What Steph has done is comparable to only one player and that is Michael Jordan. Prior to Michael the formula for winning a championship was that you needed to have a dominating center and players built around him. Michael Jordan was the first wing player that proved capable of winning a championship without an elite big man. Fast forward to Steph Curry and the belief was that jump shooting teams could not win a championship. This was believed to be true due to the failures of the Mike D'Antoni Phoenix Suns, whom the modern day Golden Sate Warriors are just a 2.0 version of. But Steph proved that to be wrong when he and his jump shooting team with splash brother Klay Thompson won in 2014-2015.
Can you believe that? The guy who is too skinny, not athletic, not big, not strong, not 6'9", not fast, fragile and can only shoot led his team to an NBA CHAMPIONSHIP and dominated this "grown man's" league in doing so. That alone creates vitriol. The type of vitriol that leads to people wanting to edit your credits with failures. No one is perfect. Before Michael started winning, he was losing a lot. Steph has changed the way the NBA plays basketball.
He has single handedly gotten rid of a staple position in the NBA being that of the prototypical center. He is so dominant of a scorer on the pick and roll. Now teams only want big men with quick enough feet to at least contest shots from guards, and this is all due to Steph and how he demoralized opponent after opponent in the NBA with his ability to shoot anywhere on the court, pass half court. He has single handedly made switching in the NBA a necessity because of his ability to shoot so quick.
He worked hard when nobody believed in him and became the greatest player of this current NBA ERA. That includes James and Bryant. He has by himself changed the way coaches and front offices draft players, decipher floor spacing and even decide style of play. He has turned what was once the least effective shot on the floor to now the most important shot on the floor. And due to the vitriol against him he is not receiving his credit for that at the level he should right now. I'm sure it will take when his career is over for people to really soak in the magnitude of what he has done. All because again people really don't like when you don't fit the part. They don't like when you actually are different. They don't enjoy the underdog story as much as they enjoy the gladiator who is built to dominate.
But guys like me will be here to tell you that what you are witnessing from him is the cloth of only one other and that is the greatest basketball player ever, Michael Jordan.
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