Stephen Curry had to get his groove back. He did.
OAKLAND, CALIF. — Stephen Curry’s lowest point came the night of Game 7.
The anger kidnapped his words on the silent drive home. He was girded by the presence of friends and family at his postgame gathering, but inside he was feeling it.
The frustration and disappointment. The looping mental replay of Kyrie Irving’s step-back 3, of the Cavaliers celebrating on the Oracle floor. The churning in his core.
He sought comfort in the garlic crust of Domino’s pizza. A glass of wine. A Cuban cigar. But all he found was dejection.
“Saddest cigar I’ve ever smoked,” Curry said. “Usually you smoke a cigar when you win. That’s how terrible of a party it was . ... We had some real conversations that night about how much it sucked.”
And then the low point was done, passed over him like a storm. The angst wasn’t gone but the worst was over. Life had resumed. Curry’s secret talent had kicked in.
He is nearly as adept at discernment as he is at shooting. Curry tends to always see the big picture, to remember the essences — of life, of basketball, of who he is and wants to be — even in the midst of adversity. He clings to perspective. And this season, after the humiliation of squandering a championship, after the Warriors became a freak show, perspective was the pipe he held onto so the storm didn’t pull him away.
It’s this part of Curry that gets overlooked, outshone by crossovers and transition 3-pointers. It is how he bounced back from debilitating defeat. It is why Kevin Durant is here. It is how the Warriors grew in chemistry despite all the elements endangering their bond. It is how they enter these finals focused and driven, not fuelled by revenge but by the pursuit of excellence.
No, it wasn’t all Curry. But it’s been a key ingredient all along. It violates the superstar order but is paramount in the development and sustainability of this Warriors’ era. If the Larry O’Brien trophy does return to the Bay, it will be validation for the secret ingredient in the Warriors’ sauce: Curry’s leadership style.
Getting their heart ripped out on the national stage, and subsequently ridiculed, didn’t derail the Warriors. Adding an MVP, and with him relentless scrutiny and criticism, never seemed to penetrate this team’s psyche.
And now that they are back here, in the finals against the same Cavaliers that devastated them, revenge — a dangerous fuel for a team because of its volatility — doesn’t seem to be the dominant motivator. Instead, it’s basketball excellence, it’s buffering each other from the rampant venom aimed their way.
And when you break down the biology of the Warriors, the origin of these intangibles is Curry. They trickle down from his seat atop the Warriors’ podium and infiltrate the chemistry.
Draymond Green is the heartbeat of the team. But Curry is its nervous system — how the team is wired, responsible for processing the environment and situation and informing the entire organism how to respond.
“Your consistency on a daily basis, how you handle yourself, how you deal with your successes and failures,” Curry said. “It’s more like an ‘actions speak louder’ kind of situation for me. That’s how I approach the leadership stand point. Humility, knowing that I have flaws, things that I gotta work on on a daily basis . ... People know when I say something, it’s coming from a place of honesty and care. It’s not any self-serving purpose to it. That is how I approach it every day.”
Curry had an out. He could have potentially killed the Durantto-Warriors move.
He had gotten word through a friend he trusts that Durant had concerns about how Curry would receive him. This was a revelation to Curry, who had no idea he was the last hurdle in the blockbuster, maybe the decider.
What happens if he goes Kobe Bryant, who recruited Dwight Howard by making it clear whose franchise it is? Most pundits and experts would have probably praised him for marking his territory.
What if Curry does the passive aggressive thing and goes radio silent, leaving Durant with the unaddressed concern, hoping the uncertainty prevents Durant from coming?
Instead, Curry did the unthinkable. He went out of his way to make sure Durant felt welcomed, comfortable.
“I’m still not convinced ...,” Curry said before pausing with squinted stare as he wrestled with how to verbalize his point. “Being the man, the star, the clear-cut one, stuff like that — it’s overrated if you’re not winning.
“Last summer we had a decision. But in that moment, in the summer of 2016, we had the opportunity to go that way or this way. I felt like this way was the best opportunity for us as a team to win. I can live with that all day long. Yeah, I don’t get to shoot 25 shots a game. I don’t get to run 800 pick-and-rolls a game. Yeah, that’s a sacrifice, if you want to call it that. The point is to win a bunch of championships and whatever the narrative is it doesn’t really matter.”
But no good deed goes unpunished. So Curry’s display of humility didn’t end with his sales pitch. It ignited a process that would require persistence, more sacrifice and patience.
Curry has always set that tone in the locker-room. For example, it’s been years since money was a divisive issue in the Warriors’ franchise. That’s because it’s hard to complain about money when the best player is severely underpaid yet dancing around with joy. Every other star on the roster followed by taking less money than he could have gotten. The path has been paved for Durant to do the same in July.
But past good works wouldn’t cut it this season. The pressure, and attention, and stakes were such that any discord had the potential to be detrimental, especially coming from the top. Curry’s example, the tone he set, was as paramount as ever.
And though the ridicule from blowing a 3-1 lead never let up, though he had fallen a tier in public perception, though his Under Armour shoes declined in sales, though he struggled initially adjusting to Durant’s large presence, Curry’s discernment carried the day.
Most of today’s superstars have a reputation for, one way or another, flexing their superstarness. It’s an accepted part of being so good, a perk that comes with the production. Yet Curry shuns the option in favour of the meek route. Discernment won’t let him act on the moment at the expense of the big picture.
So his teammates can yell at him on the court publicly and there won’t be a sniff of anger after the game. He can listen to analysts demean his status, fans mock his failures, and repeatedly opt not to defend his own honour.
The talk of him having a down year quietly burns him. The narrative that he hasn’t played well in the NBA finals agitates him. He would love to point out he averaged 26 in 2015, outplayed LeBron James in an epic Game 5 before controlling the closeout in Game 6. All against all-out double teams and traps.
“Only thing is if you look at it compared to what LeBron has done the last two (finals),” Curry said, explaining the only context possible to support this idea he doesn’t play well in the finals. “He’s been unbelievable. He’s played amazing. Kyrie had an amazing series last year, an amazing three games and that won them a championship. It just depends on what you decide to focus on.”
So why bother with challenging narratives? What’s the win in that? What’s the message that delivers to his team?
So Curry eats it, swallows his considerable pride and leans on the perspective that reminds him he is winning anyway.
“If there is a debate about my value in this league, on my team, then that’s an issue to begin with,” Curry said. “When you talk about a certain amount of guys in the league every year, I’m going to be one of them. And at the end of the day, we’re four wins away from being talked about a lot. So I have a job to do in that respect, so who cares about all that other stuff.”