THE STEPH SHOW IS BETTER THAN EVER, JUST WHEN WE NEED IT MOST
Curry is hearing “MVP!’’ chants in enemy arenas, even Kevin Durant’s, which means sport’s most electric performer — and most important athlete — is saving us from Aaron Rodgers and other scandals
He was supposed to be a fad in the zeitgeist, like cronuts and Baby Shark, destined to fade out. Stephen Curry was an overgrown kid-next-door, a Pop-A-Shot hero, eventually to be decoded by NBA coaching and physicality. Too frail … too one-dimensional … too cute and cuddly in the Age of LeBron.
All these years later, look at the babe now, at 33, the most important athlete in American sports. He’s the reigning stop-the-world entertainer, more vital in these complex times than the champions, though he soon might return to that podium, too. At a time when sports is bombarded by scandals, the one reliable joyful constant is Curry, the best version of him yet, so committed to complete basketball mastery that he’s even drawing raves for his defense.
What he always brings so dreamily — and what we need more than ever — is showmanship, such as last week, when he was polishing off his 52nd career performance of at least 40 points, which followed his 10th career performance of at least 50 points. In the game when he would establish the league record for most career three-pointers in the regular season and playoffs combined — he has 3,378, which qualifies him as slightly better than a home-driveway gunner — he winged another heave from 24 feet and didn’t bother to check if it was going in, instead turning around and pointing at the crowd in San Francisco and letting the roars inform him, then doing his trademark mouthpiece-dangle as if to say, “Damn, I’m good,’’ something he’d never actually say.
Turns out it was just a warmup for his shimmy/shake dance routine, just across the East River from Broadway, where Curry and the Golden State Warriors extended their torrid start to 12-2 with a scorching of the Brooklyn Nets — yes, the chosen destination of Kevin Durant, who fled the Bay Area to win his next championships in New York City. Or, so he thought. While the season is young and prayers already are being said for Klay Thompson, who is due back soon from 2 1/2 years of severe leg injuries, the Warriors are operating as if they’ll beat Durant back to the trophy ceremony. Already having taken down LeBron James three times, a Curry triumph over Durant, his old running mate, would be the ultimate validation of his lofty place in sports history — and the Warriors’ place as a legendary franchise, one that overcame the departure of an all-time great and an unfathomable curse of devastating injuries to regain their prominence in a new decade.
Remember when Michael Jordan was feted by New York audiences, showered with reverence and awe? The other night in Barclays Center, Curry heard chants of “MVP! MVP!’’ — in Durant’s house. Most fans will agree that a Curry percolation, when he’s drilling threes in thundering succession, is the most sublime show in sports.
“Yeah, the way the crowd energizes when Steph starts rising up from 30 feet — it's everywhere,’’ Kerr said after the 117-99 win. “It happened in Charlotte the other night. It happened tonight. So I think the fact that our team is good again and is playing well and has a good record adds to what Steph brings to the table every night, in terms of his skill and showmanship. And so that stuff — when you're winning and you get the incredible display from Steph, people are going to watch. It's fun to be back in the spotlight again. Our team is really enjoying being back here.’’
As for Durant, he might be finished winning titles after recruiting a booby prize in Kyrie Irving, who continues to prioritize his quack vaccine theories over suiting up, willing to forgo millions. As the Warriors stir their familiar organizational DNA, the Nets are trying to locate their identity, with a bewildered head coach acknowledging they aren’t on the level of the Warriors and defending champion Milwaukee Bucks. “Well, I just don't think we're in that category yet,’’ Steve Nash said. “We got a lot of work to do. We're trying to improve as a group, get better and hopefully we can find a way to overcome some of our deficiencies by the end of the year.’’
If he had an ounce of meanness in his 190-pound body, Curry could target Durant with some grass-isn’t-greener-in-Brooklyn snark. Instead, he pointed out how long it took the Warriors to grow into a championship outfit. “Everybody has a different burden when it comes to that, different circumstances that you have to go through,’’ Curry said. “There’s a lot of different ways to put a combination of guys together and create a system and an identity around what that is, night after night, and year after year, when you’re legitimate contenders. We obviously know it’s not easy. But I feel like part of the DNA that we have, and what we’ve built over the last seven or eight years, it comes to just a commitment of ‘this is how we’re going to play, this is how we’re going to win.’ And you have to buy into it or you don’t fit here. I don’t know how (Durant) would answer that, but it’s just about creating a culture and an identity that you expect everybody that’s rocking that jersey to live up to, no matter how long it takes.”
Translated, Kyrie wouldn’t last a nanosecond in that culture, even if he did dethrone the Warriors with a jumper in 2016.
So let Aaron Rodgers lie about his own junk science and abuse his powers as a national influencer. Let Jon Gruden slur Blacks, women and gays. Let animals continue to expose hockey’s cultural sickness. In the NBA, let the owner of the Phoenix Suns and president of the Portland Trail Blazers be investigated for toxic work environments.
Steph is gonna Steph and make us forget all the detritus. And above all, in his 13th league season, it’s safe to assume he’s controversy-proof. Here we thought his grandest superlatives were in the past, but after claiming three championships and two MVPs, Curry is positioned for an even bigger NBA takeover and more trophies. Not that he’s surprised. Never mind the conventional thought that even the greats begin to fade after 32. It’s as if he simply needed a breather after a series of rude interruptions — including a broken left hand that shortened his 2019-20 season to five games, a 15-50 disaster and an organizational crash into the lottery — before resuming his fairy tale. All the while, he has carried on as an admired leader in his community and his country. He thinks professional and personal improvement are part of his responsibility to humankind, not a burden.
“Yeah. It should be. You keep learning from years past and keep adding on different layers to who I am as a person and a basketball player and all of that,” Curry said.
Layers also are being affixed to his legacy. When he was named last month among the 75 greatest players in league history — celebrating by making his first 10 shots that night — the first instinct was to reassess the upper levels of the pantheon. Where does Curry belong? No one is unseating Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan. Among those still active, James and Durant are waiting.
If those are the first 11 — and let the arguing begin — Curry belongs in the top 15, with a bullet. Already known as the greatest shooter ever, another title run with MVP hardware moves him upward. Said teammate Damion Lee: “We have one of the top 75, 50, 25, 10 players to ever play the game. When he gets it going like that, it’s a special thing.”
Lee happens to be Curry’s brother-in-law. His comment isn’t rooted in nepotism.
To hear his college coach, Davidson’s Bob McKillop, Curry should be on a higher stage than a hardwood floor. Chase Center might be the House That Steph Built, but McKillop wants him to think about … the White House. He is only half-kidding.
“I joke with him all the time about being president because we need a leader like this guy in the White House,’’ McKillop said. “As crazy as that sounds, if you look at the way he’s led this organization, this city, this global community that NBA basketball is apart of, he’s been a leader out front in a very quiet, consistent, distinguished, graceful way. Isn’t that what we need leading our world?”
Well, yes, sure. “I texted him today and I said, ‘It’s this same kind of gracious spirit that you have that’s going to get me to vote for you in eight years or 12 years,’ whatever it is,’’ said McKillop, who figures Curry still will be playing — at 40 — in the 2028 election year. “He bounces around like a young kid. I would never, never prejudge what Stephen Curry can do. The sky’s the limit. … So I’ll say (20)32.’’
For the NBA, the return of the “Light Years’’ phenomenon — owner Joe Lacob once told the New York Times that the Warriors are “light years ahead of probably every other team in structure, in planning, in how we're going to go about things” — couldn’t have arrived more urgently. Suns owner Robert Sarver, investigated for allegations of sexism and racially insensitive behavior, could be forced to sell the team by commissioner Adam Silver. Giannis Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP, stunned his small-market faithful in Milwaukee by telling GQ he might play elsewhere in the future, saying, “One challenge was to bring a championship here and we did. It was very hard, but we did. Very, very hard. I just love challenges. What’s the next challenge? The next challenge might not be here.’’ The rise of the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat has been interrupted by tampering probes into the sign-and-trade acquisitions of Lonzo Ball and Kyle Lowry. Zion Williamson, once seen as a future NBA kingpin, is sidelined and overweight as fans mock him. Ben Simmons continues to cite “mental health’’ and lose millions by avoiding contact with the Philadelphia 76ers, who can’t trade him because few teams are interested. The Lakers are so wretched, Staples might not be sad about losing its L.A. arena naming rights deal to Crypto.com.
But the dark clouds dissipate when Steph starts to Steph. And all the while, he remains gracious and grounded in a world that is anything but. He was asked to explain the evolution of a scoring explosion. “I don’t want to say, because I don’t want it to change,’’ he said.
“I don’t want to give it away.’’
Anything he reveals at this point wouldn’t matter. He’s on pace to make 445 three-pointers this season, which would shatter his own all-time league record, which shattered his previous all-time record. Just say it: From the day James Naismith nailed peach baskets to a balcony above a gymnasium floor, Stephen Curry has figured out how to shoot a ball through a cylinder better than any other human being who has tried.
A fad, um, he is not.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.