Stephen Curry Has Completely Changed The Game

It’s 2006, the day is November 11, and Wardell Stephen Curry II is suiting up in his Davidson College basketball uniform.

He was just coming off his first collegiate game against Eastern Michigan University, tallying a “double-double” of 15 points and 13 turnovers. For his first game, it didn’t seem all that bad, but that wasn’t the level that he wanted to stay at, to settle for. And he had his reasons.

Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

Coming into college, Curry had received just two other scholarship offers. He had wanted to play for Virginia Tech, his father’s alma mater, but they only offered him a place as a walk-on player. Standing at just 6-feet and 160 lbs., it was clear that no one expected all that much from Curry.

So it was quite the surprise for everyone when Curry suited up on Nov. 11, 2006 against the University of Michigan and produced a 32-point performance on 48.0 percent shooting. He also added nine rebounds and four assists, and he brought down his turnover count to three.

He was a long shot in more than one way, finishing the year as the second-highest scoring freshman in the nation behind a guy named Kevin Durant. Along the way, he set a couple school and NCAA records and earned himself several season awards, but his Wildcats eventually lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament despite a game-high 30-point effort.

He returned to Davidson the next year and, well, you know the rest.

Fast forward to April 9, 2015 — Curry is suiting up in his Golden State Warriors basketball uniform, ready to defend home court against hometown favorite Damian Lillard and his Portland Trailblazers.

Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Curry was four three-pointers short of matching his season record of 272 made threes, and nearly everyone was looking forward to seeing an uber-competitive game. Surely, a fellow Western Conference playoff team that is well aware of Curry’s shooting abilities would put up a struggle on the perimeter and do whatever it took to make it tough for him to even get one off.

To everyone’s disappointment, it only took the first quarter for Curry to match his record, then another eight minutes before he set the new one (276). He would go on to torch the Blazers for 45 points, going 17-for-23 shooting from the field (73.9%) and 8-for-13 from behind the arc. He would also end up with a double-double, adding in 10 assists after playing 35 minutes (just the 27th time he’s played 35 or more minutes).

Writers, analysts, broadcasters and fans alike have debated for much of the season on who in the NBA will earn the title of “Most Valuable Player,” or MVP. Credit Russell Westbrook for his unbelievable ability to rack up triple-doubles, but the race has been mostly limited to Curry and James Harden.

There is little doubt Harden deserves MVP. The last few players that have averaged roughly 27.6 points, 5.7 rebounds, 6.9 assists and 1.9 steals went by the names of LeBron James, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, so Harden is definitely in good company. He certainly thinks so too.

More from Golden State Warriors

He’s also had to do more with less considering his team has suffered so greatly at the hands of the 2014-15 injury bug. And as the season draws to a close, the hypothetical narratives that Harden supporters so heavily rely on have continued to evolve. It’s hard to ignore all of it, because as difficult as it is to prove hypotheticals, it is that much more difficult to try to disprove arguments not based in fact.

But as little doubt there is for Harden deserving MVP, there is absolutely no doubt that Curry is the rightful MVP of the league.

There’s stacks upon stacks of data that could be laid out in support of Curry’s MVP candidacy, pinpointing certain statistics that help evidence the fact that Curry makes more of a difference to his team than Harden and that the Warriors would be nothing without a quarterback like Curry.

By extension, those stats also help prove that Curry isn’t carrying his team like other MVP candidates, but rather he is the driving force behind why each of his teammates look much improved this season. (For the record, his teammates only help affirm that notion.)

But when we look at the other MVP candidates — when we look at Westbrook’s 11 triple-doubles or Harden’s incredible season output — we see a precedent from which we are able to draw comparisons.

We see Westbrook and liken him to Oscar Robertson, THE triple-double and one of the most prolific point guards in the history of the league. With Harden, as aforementioned, we see shades of Jordan, Bird and James. Each have secured their place in basketball lore as three of the best to ever play the game.

So it’s understandable why some are so confused, so perplexed by Curry. There’s no precedent that we can accurately look at and compare him to.

Of course, there’s players like Mark Price, Pete Maravich, Reggie Miller, Ray Allen and Steve Nash that all come to mind, and they all come pretty close, but there’s no denying that the world is still in complete awe of Steph Curry because — put simply — he’s in a world of his own.

Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

He has the craftiness of Price, the creativity of Maravich, the fearlessness of Miller, the shooting ability of Allen and the ability to make his teammates better like Nash, but they are each great in their own right and Curry compares to neither one of them; rather, they are all pieces to the puzzle that Curry is. Curry’s inspiration comes from those hardwood legends, even adding the streetball handles of players like Jason Williams and Rafer Alston to become a new type of player people have never seen before.

It’s literally mind-boggling to some people watching Curry because naturally, our brains are hardwired to connect the dots and make sense of things, but the way that Curry plays is just something that our brains cannot process entirely.

The crazy thing about Curry is that although some refuse to see it or try not to admit it, Curry is laying down a blueprint from which future generations will build on. He’s setting individual records that he alone is able to break and helping his teammates and the organization as a whole set their own records. He’s blessed with a divine shooting touch that differs from everyone else, in that his ability to shoot off the dribble was previously considered to be improbable.

We’ve seen athletic guys get through other players like a knife through butter. We’ve seen guys take what seems to be a million shots and score 50 points in multiple games. We’ve seen guys put their head down and earn the opportunity to build a hut at the free throw line.

We never saw a guy score 100 points until Wilt Chamberlain. We never saw a guy jump from the free throw line until Julius Erving. We never saw a guy dominate the entire league so effortlessly as a guard until Jordan. Since then, we’ve had other great emulators, guys that have continued their legacy and built on it.

We’ve never seen anything like Steph Curry, dribbling through three defenders for the fadeaway three or going coast to coast to pull up from 28-feet. Since the three-point line was introduced and implemented in 1979, we’ve never seen a person take advantage of the extra point like this 6-foot-3-inch skinny dude that still looks like he belongs in high school.

Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

It doesn’t matter who’s guarding him or how many people are around him. He’ll make the right play, whether that’s an outlet pass to Draymond Green up top, a skip pass to Klay Thompson for three, a fancy dribble-drive past a top on-ball defender or even a turnaround, fadeaway three-pointer over a 7-footer that found himself too far from home.

And Curry doesn’t just do that every now and then — he does that on a nightly basis. It’s normal for him, abnormal for everyone else that’s still a homo sapien.

Back then, you had guys doing everything they could to try taking off from the free throw line.

Nowadays, you go to the park or open gym and watch guys try dribbling through three defenders, going behind their back and between their legs, only to try a stepback jumper from 28-feet. They try and try to replicate what Curry has shown them is possible, but they fail to match his consistency making unbelievable plays.

Steph Curry is paving the way. He’s the MVP. He’s setting the precedent. We’re all just trying to be great imitators at this point.

Next: Draymond Green On Recent Trash Talk

Home/Golden State Warriors