Taking Nash’s example to a higher level
Warriors star Stephen Curry says he learned a lot from watching the Victoria native early in his career
TORONTO — There is a comfort to Stephen Curry that is both calming and charming. He’s the superstar you’d want to invite home for dinner.
And he’d probably bring flowers or just the right bottle of wine because that’s the kind of polite and proper kid he is — one who makes you feel good about meeting him and, at the same time, appears to feel good about meeting you.
Curry seems to know exactly who he is and where he is in life and in career, the player Steve Nash describes as the walking evolution of the game, a description that couldn’t be more perfect.
Funny how this stuff goes: Curry used to study Nash, learn from watching him, steal his moves. Now Nash, a Victoria native, works part-time for the Golden State Warriors, part assistant coach, part consultant and learns from him in a different way.
“It’s huge,” Curry said of having Nash around. “It mean, it’s his first year as our consultant, assistant coach kind of deal. He passes on good nuggets of information focus, mindset, focus, also Xs and Os. He was the guy I used to watch and used to try stuff out from. I’d watch … what’s Steve doing? And try to copy him.
“For him to say that about me, is a huge compliment. I’ll take it from a special guy like that.”
Like Nash was, Curry is the basketball player who defies time and space and logic and physics all at the same time in the same kind of way Wayne Gretzky once defined an unexplainable way to play hockey, with movement and motion and the play following him, rather than the regular alternative.
Only he’s taken Nash’s game up a notch. He adds more inexplicable and improbable. He makes the impossible possible. He makes you want to tune in and watch tonight, tomorrow night and the night after.
He used to watch Nash. Now Nash — and everybody else in the sport — watches him. Gretzky has been told there is a little of him in both Nash and Curry, but probably on a scale of unique athletes, closer to Curry.
Normally, there is so little to compare between basketball and hockey, games foreign to each other, but really, with generational geniuses come comparisons. This isn’t a Canadian cliché being in hockey country. This is more about trying to explain how and what Curry does.
He plays a game like no one before him, takes shots we’ve never seen, does nothing that actually surprises himself. There is a plan for all of it, he says. He said that Friday when asked if ever does anything on the court that astounds him.
Instead, he astounds us. We’re surprised. His opponents are surprised. Him? And this isn’t ego talking, not so much. It’s all about preparation.
“I don’t try things in games I haven’t tried before,” he said.
It was the no different with Gretzky, who was never the biggest, the fastest or the strongest. He didn’t shoot the puck harder. He didn’t physically overwhelm anyone. He had a body without a lot of muscle and for his sport, he was somewhat undersized. But he had vision that could never be properly quantified. And what Curry is doing now — and no one else can play his game or properly cover him — Gretzky did on skates by creating openings for himself and his teammates, by creating offence for the most exciting hockey team of the past 40 years.
There was no one like Gretzky in his time, never been anyone like him again. And there is no one like Curry in the NBA, never was before, may never be again, creating offence for the most what is now exciting show in all of sport.
Has there ever been a team more fun to watch than Golden State Warriors, a player more fun to watch than Curry?
The team is that great and the player is that great, and if there is a distinction that separates Curry and Gretzky, it may be the difference in the way their sports are played. Curry stands out more. The occasional singularity of basketball allows that. He controls the game more. The offence he often creates is more about his own shots than finding an opponent open.
When told that Gretzky has even referenced himself in explaining Curry’s game, the all-star seemed genuinely humbled by the comparison — even if he knows next to nothing about hockey.
“I’m not a huge hockey fan at all,” Curry said. “I’ve only been to one game in my life and it was actually here at the ACC, back when I was 13. I don’t watch much, but respect the greatness as a casual fan watching sports TV. I wasn’t that knowledgeable on the hockey front. But for anybody that great to have a compliment is special.”
He is saying all that as he looks around and takes in all that is around him, all that is being back in Toronto, where he lived three years as a kid when his father Dell played for the Raptors.
“It’s amazing to be back,” said Curry, who will suit up for the Western Conference Sunday and took part in the three-point shooting competition Saturday. “I spent three good years here when my dad was here ending his career with the Raptors. Living right here on Lakeshore Boulevard. Going to school at Queensway Christian College, a little school. I have good memories of all that.
“Every time I come back to the Air Canada Centre to play, the ushers, the people who work in the back, who used to see my brother and me running around to come back here for the all-star game is special.”
“I always look forward to my one trip the Air Canada Centre to play the Raptors. And to have the all-star game here and be back — and my pops is here. We talked about our experience living here on and off for three years. I love the city. Love the people here. For the city as host the all-star game and have all these people come and play … this is a special time.”
Just as it is a special time in Curry’s career. It’s not possible to turn LeBron James into afterthought, but Curry has to be the player to watch in the NBA now. He isn’t stopping to his admire his championship ring or MVP award. He wants more. From himself. From his team.”
“I love the game and want to continue to get better every single day. That’s my motivation. That’s what I’m trying to do. There’s a lot more to accomplish. One championship. One MVP. Being here for weekends like this. You want to continue to strive for more. That’s what I do, keep coming back here every single year.”