The night that might have changed it all
Curry has reimagined basketball, and he was almost a Knick
Bill Belichick will always be the one who got away in New York sports, when he left the Jets for the Patriots. But it was Belichick’s choice to leave. Steph Curry is the one who got away because the Knicks were one pick away from drafting him in 2009, after Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni did everything except hire skywriters to tell anybody who would listen how much they loved the kid from Davidson.
Now, at the age of 33, Steph is something more than the one who got away here.
He is The One, period.
If he wins one more title this season, he will have the same number of NBA titles as LeBron.
And it’s more than that. He is the biggest and most watchable and entertaining star in his sport and all our sports right now. In the NBA, it’s not LeBron and it’s not Kevin Durant. It is No. 30 of the Warriors, who has done something only a handful of players have ever done in the history of professional basketball:
He has reimagined it.
Bill Russell did it in a different way once, and so did Wilt Chamberlain. And Dr. J, who played the game so far above the rim you were afraid that he was going to hit his head on the ceiling. Michael did. And Magic and Larry, for a lot of reasons, including a rivalry between them that began in college, and because they brought the pass back to the NBA.
Steph Curry has done that, for a lot of reasons, but mostly this one:
He has made bad shots good shots.
He has done that, and, more than anybody else in the sport, because he can make shots from your house, he has made the court look bigger. Nobody ever did that. People who love the beauty of basketball will never love the 3-point shot. Except when he’s shooting it. He is not just the greatest shooter in basketball history, he has expanded the possibilities the same way it seems he has imagined the size of the offensive end.
And the Knicks were one pick away from getting him, before Don Nelson, who coached the Knicks until he got sideways with Patrick Ewing, drafted him at No. 7 and began to change the history of the NBA, not just in the Bay Area.
All of a sudden Steph was making pull-up jumpers from everywhere. And before long, the younger players coming along — hi there, Trae Young and hi there, Ja Morant (the Knicks were one pick away from him, too) — were doing the exact same thing. Remember “Be Like Mike.” Now they want to Be Like Steph.
There was a time when the Warriors were winning three titles in four years and becoming the biggest game in pro sports in this country. They did it with Steph and Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Then they added Kevin Durant. Kept winning. And if Draymond hadn’t gotten himself suspended from Game 5 in 2016, the Warriors would have made it four in a row. It all organized around Curry, even when Durant was there, and there is no intent to diminish the fact that Durant is a unique talent of his own, because of his size and shooting ability, in NBA history.
Steph was Out There. Things happened for all of them after that. Durant got hurt in the Finals against the Raptors and so did Klay. Steph got hurt last season. The Warriors went away for a while, and you were afraid it was for good. Now they are back.
And the other night in Brooklyn, on the other side of the East River from the Knicks, who were one pick away before Steph was the star athlete who got away, there was Steph Curry showing you why he is the greatest show on earth again. He made nine 3-pointers against the Nets and made everybody else in the gym, Durant included, bit players, and had a Brooklyn crowd — a New York City basketball crowd — chanting “MVP!” for a player on the other team.
Here is what his coach Steve Kerr said this week about No. 30 of the Warriors:
“Nothing surprises me anymore, and yet I’m amazed if that makes sense. It’s still incredible to watch, but you sort of expect it. That’s what greatness is about. You sort of expect something to happen and then he does it and you’re just in awe.”
And he said something he’s said before:
“There’s never been anyone like him.”
Twice he has averaged 30 points in a season. This season he is averaging 29.5. But looks better than he ever has, as the Warriors have run out to the best record in the league, like it’s the good old days all over again for them, while they wait for Klay Thompson
to finally come back, maybe by Christmas. He makes a hard game look as easy now as he did when he was a kid at Davidson playing for Bob McKillop, who basically taught him that with a talent like Curry’s for basketball comes responsibilities.
“[McKillop] told me when I was a freshman that I had license to shoot any shot I wanted, but I’d have to work for it,” Curry said once. “I’d have to put in the time and actually commit to learning on the job. Even when I failed early freshman year, he stayed in my ear because he saw my potential before I did.”
And then came the night of the draft. Blake Griffin went first that night. Then Hasheem Thabeet ,a big kid from UConn. James Harden was the third pick. Then Tyreke Evans and Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn of Syracuse. Then Nellie took Curry with the seventh pick, and it was as if the night ended right there. The Knicks went for Jordan Hill of Arizona, passing on DeMar DeRozan, who went 9th. Curry went off to make history with the Warriors, the Knicks went almost all of the next decade not doing much of anything at all until Tom Thibodeau came to town.
Who knows what would have happened if the Knicks had gotten Steph at the time. Who knows if even he, as gifted as he is, would have been able to save the Knicks from themselves. What we know is what we see from him, game after game. We see how Curry has even reimagined the pick-and-roll with the Warriors. We see the beautiful game of basketball the Warriors play, even with 3-pointers being hoisted up early and often and all over the basketball map. Just nobody does it like Steph Curry, who soon will have made more 3-point shots than anybody in history.
If his hip doesn’t continue to give him trouble, he is going to be MVP, for the third time. The Knicks had one MVP, ever, Willis
more than 50 years ago. Steph Curry, one pick away from the Garden once, would have been the second.
The Flacc Attack is back for the Jets after Robert Saleh gave Joe Flacco the nod over Mike White to start against the Dolphins on Sunday. The Jets feel better about Zach Wilson’s chances to start next week against the Houston Texans in Week 12, but he is still recovering from the knee sprain he suffered against the Patriots in Week 7.
And while White was the talk of the town the last month as some believed he could possibly become the long-term answer at quarterback, he tossed four interceptions last week in a blowout loss to the Bills.
That led the Jets to throw it back to Flacco, who they traded for on Oct. 25.
“You know Joe is just that veteran,” Saleh said. “One of the reasons we went and got Joe is for the experience part of it. Not only for the playing ability, but for the room, but also for situations like this.”
Saleh also cited Flacco’s experience against the Dolphins’ chaotic blitzing scheme as to why Gang Green is rolling with the former Super Bowl MVP on Sunday in this AFC East clash at MetLife Stadium.
“Joe’s kind of been there, done that, and just kind of a steadying experience that we thought would put us in the best position to win.” As for Flacco, he just wants the chance. “You can’t take this game for granted,” Flacco said. “I’m 14 years in now and I want to play now more than ever.”
White, with only three NFL starts on his resume, probably would have struggled against the amount of blitzing Miami does. In eight quarters of action, White has completed 40% of his passes against the blitz, with two interceptions and a passer rating of 37.6.
The Dolphins lead the NFL by blitzing on 39.7% of defensive snaps and have totaled the second-most quarterback pressures this season (123).
And recently the Dolphins defense has finally shown signs of being the unit that ranked in the Top 5 in 2020.
In their past three games, they’ve held their opponents to 15 points per game. They contained the mighty Bills offense until the last few minutes of the game in a Week 8 loss. Last week, they held the Ravens offense led by MVP candidate Lamar Jackson to 10 points on Thursday Night Football. Jackson finished with 266 yards of total yards with one touchdown, one interception and was sacked four times. And the Texans only scored nine points the week before
The defensive scheme hasn’t always worked this fall, though. In the six prior games, Miami allowed an average of 32 points. But recent signs are showing the unit is closer to the 2020 version. And they’re seventh in the NFL in takeaways with 15.
So it makes sense to start Flacco, who has experience against what the Dolphins will do. He faced that same scheme last year in his first stint with Gang Green, although it wasn’t a good outing as the Jets were blanked 24-0 in Miami on Oct. 18 to fall to 0-6.
The Dolphins blitzed Flacco on 49% of his dropbacks that day. He had a passer rating of 45 when he was faced with five or more rushers.
“It limits your offense to a certain extent,” Flacco said, “and it forces you to kind of make a guy miss or get the ball out of your hands quick and make sure you’re on top of everything, all the little details in your offense. I think it’s one of those things that in football, the positive plays usually go to the aggressor.”
However, that was under a different coaching staff with different players so Saleh doesn’t care about those results.
“Last year is irrelevant. Completely different O-line, different receivers, different coach, different coordinator, different everything,” Saleh said on Wednesday. “Joe’s proven in this league, he’s played in the AFC North and he knows exactly what he’s looking at. He’s trained for this his whole life. Again, he’s a very steadying force, player, in terms of just his experience and knowledge and being able to get the ball to his playmakers.”
Flacco isn’t athletic enough to evade the pressure with his feet. So it’ll have to be with his mental processing ability with help from the Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to call plays to combat the blitz.
“Joe has got the ability to process and get the ball in-and-out of his hands as quickly as possible,” Saleh said on Friday. “I have a lot of faith in Mike LaFleur and his ability to game plan with his staff and put players in position where there’s space to be had. But, again, it goes back to Joe’s experience and recognizing coverages presnap and knowing exactly where the ball needs to get as quickly as possible to, one, avoid hits, but, two, get the ball where it needs to go in space.”
Flacco’s only been with the Jets for a cup of coffee this season — this coming after he served as Sam Darnold’s backup in 2020 before leaving to join the Eagles in the offseason — and he doesn’t have much chemistry with his weapons, but LaFleur isn’t worried about that because of his experience.
“He’s played so much ball that the cool part about him is when he steps out on the field, he’s seen it all,” LaFleur said. “Just little tweaks and stuff to the offense with cadences and all that kind of stuff or what he’s getting used to, but it’s cool. Joe, he’s been there before, so we expect some good stuff from him.”
The passing attack over the past three weeks has blossomed. It’s averaging 369 yards through the air over that stretch with contributions from Josh Johnson, White and Flacco. The only issue is Johnson and White have tossed a combined seven interceptions.
The Jets can’t afford the turnovers, but the yard production must continue if they want to get their third win in Flacco’s first start of the year.