STEPH CURRY — PERHAPS THE GREATEST PLAYER IN NBA HISTORY — IS ON THE RUN OF HIS BASKETBALL LIFE
The greatest player in history?
Maybe a stretch.
Maybe.
But for this waif-like, wispy cager to continue getting better, improving a product that is already the best, not only boggles the mind, but covers more ground than can be rationally explained.
Over his last eight outings, Curry is on an absolute scoring tear, the likes of which we have never seen from him.
He has scored 311 points in his last eight games (38.9 ppg), the most he has ever scored in that span and the most by a Warrior since 1967, when Rick Barry scored 315 over eight contests, per the Elias Sports Bureau.
Bradley Beal — Curry’s chief competition, along with Joel Embiid, for this season’s scoring title — had 313 over eight games in the 2019-’20 campaign.
Over the past eight games, Curry is shooting 49.1% from 3-point range on 13.5 attempts per game.
He is also averaging 6.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.
He has been unstoppable.
He himself says that there are times when he feels he can’t miss.
Nobody could guard him before, but now???
Curry has indelibly etched his name in the record books along the way during his torrid run, passing Wilt Chamberlain to become the Warriors’ all-time leading scorer.
He did that with a 53-point effort in a 116–107 victory over Denver this week (April 12).
These were his numbers:
35:42 MP; 14–24 FG — .583%; 10–18 3PT FG — .556% {Overall: 24–42 FG — .571%}; 15–16 FT — .938%; 6 REB; 4 AST; 5 TO; 3 PF; 53 PTS; +16.
Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time; there can be little argument.
But he doesn’t think so…yet.
He feels that he must pass Ray Allen on the NBA’s all-time 3-point field goals made list before he anoints himself the GOAT.
(Allen made 2,973 3-pointers at a .400% clip; Curry is second with 2,734/.433%; and Reggie Miller is third, at 2,560/.395%).
“Yeah, because that was a goal of mine from the start. So, closing in on it, I’m just waiting for that moment,” Curry said.
And barring the unforeseen — it should be sometime next season — he knows it will happen, but rather than flat-out say it, he offers this apt analogy to describe just how close he is, and the inevitability of it all:
“You know when you go to the movies — well, not anymore — when you used to go to the movies, and you sit and watch the previews and they show you 99 percent of the movie, and you probably know exactly what is going to happen, the beginning and the middle and the end?
But you still got to go see the movie when it comes out.
I’m at that point, where the trailer is out, I have one more accomplishment to get to and catch Ray, and then I’ll clearly be able to stand on my pedestal and say that.
So the trailer is shot, but you still got to go see it.”
Yes you do; his humility is only exceeded by his intergalactic hardwood talent.
Which was on full metal jacket display last night (April 17) in Boston.
So amped up that he committed two fouls in the game’s first six minutes, Curry calmed down to score 14 points in the first quarter, and added 33 more over the next three, in a 119–114 loss to the suddenly hot Celtics.
He shot 15–27 from the field, including 11–19 from deep.
Over his last ten games, he has averaged 39.1 ppg, canning 68 3s.
He is the first Warriors player to have a streak of 10 straight games with 30 or more points scored, since Chamberlain’s 12-game run in 1964.
He also matched another NBA icon, the late Kobe Bryant, for consecutive 30-point games by a player 33 or older.
“I have supreme confidence…I’ve been blessed with a very special skill set that I’m trying to continue to master, and hone and get better at…and that’s showing, the work is showing, so I’m trying obviously to sustain it for the season because it’s required of us to get where we want to go.”
Late in the first half of the Celtics contest, Curry punctuated with explanation points galore, the abject (and laughable) futility of trying to defend him, when he hit a circus 22-foot half-hook, half shot put-like field goal — while being fouled by Grant Williams
The bucket pulled him into a tie with Warriors legend and Hall-of-Famer Chris Mullin for 78th place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.
He passed Mullin when he made the free throw.
The field goal?
He shot it lefty.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in April 2021.]
