Curry shoots to pass Miller
Warriors’ guard to claim second on 3point list
In the fall of 1994, after three years doing sound and music for such movies as “Schindler’s List,” “Sleeping with the Enemy” and “Home Alone,” Bruce Fraser accepted a job as a volunteer assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers.
The pay was a fraction of what he had made in the film industry, but Fraser — a former reserve point guard and graduate assistant at Arizona — was eager to get back into basketball. It also didn’t hurt that, as part of his new role with the Pacers, Fraser would get to rebound for Reggie Miller during shooting drills.
As Fraser fed Miller for pregame 3point attempts, he sometimes struggled to place
passes in just the right spot. Miller’s shooting form was so fluid that Fraser got distracted by its rhythmic beauty. Given that NBA teams were just beginning to value the 3pointer, Fraser felt as if he was witnessing the start of an offensive revolution.
What he couldn’t have known then was that two decades later, he’d work with someone who’d obliterate what Miller accomplished beyond the arc, both in terms of efficiency and volume. When Stephen Curry steps onto the Chase Center floor Tuesday with Fraser — now a Warriors assistant coach — for his shooting routine ahead of Golden State’s game against the Pacers, he’ll need to make just 24 more 3pointers to pass Miller ( 2,560) for second on the NBA’s alltime list behind Ray Allen ( 2,973).
The question isn’t whether Curry will dethrone Allen. If Curry stays healthy and maintains his current pace, he’ll become the league’s alltime leader in 3pointers midway through next season.
What basketball junkies such as Fraser want to know is whether the record Curry sets will ever be beaten. At 32, he has shown few signs of regression from beyond the arc. Yes, there was Sunday night’s 1for10 aberration, but two weeks ago — while receiving passes from Fraser at the Bulls’ practice facility — Curry hit 105 consecutive 3pointers to shatter his previous record of 77 in a row. In leading the Warriors to a comeback win Friday over the Clippers, he shot 9for14 from 3point range while facing a barrage of double teams.
Such performances have reinforced Fraser’s belief that Curry could play at a high level until he’s 40. Even if Curry maintains his career pace from 3point range only until he’s 36, he will have made well more than 3,600 3pointers. It’s hardly unrealistic to think that Curry could retire with more than 4,000.
“Someone could maybe break his record eventually because the game’s changing, but probably not during our lifetime,” said Fraser, who is in his seventh season as Curry’s shooting coach. “You’ve got kids all over the world now working on their 3point shot.
It would probably be narrowminded to think that someone couldn’t come along at some point, but no time soon.”
Among the more than 1,200 players in NBA history who have attempted at least 100 3pointers, Curry ranks sixth with a career percentage of 43.3.
What makes Curry so special is his ability to maintain such elite efficiency while hoisting a high volume of shots.
He is the only player in the top 10 in career 3point percentage who has averaged more than 15.4 points. Though most other great 3point shooters are bench players who get on the floor solely to hit the occasional 3, Curry is a distance shooter whose proficiency from beyond the arc is only part of an offensive repertoire that includes midrange jumpers, scoop shots and high number of foul shots.
Even as the rest of the league tries to mimic the 3-point-heavy style that the Warriors rode to a recent dynasty, no one has come close to matching Curry’s combination of accuracy and volume. Curry ranks first, third, fourth, sixth and ninth on the NBA’s season leaderboard for most 3pointers.
Even James Harden, who attempted an NBA-record 13.2 3pointers per game to average 36.1 points in 201819, can’t contend with Curry’s efficiency. Harden’s career 3point percentage of 36.3 is barely above the league average.
To put Curry’s pace in a larger context, in his first 10 NBA seasons, he made 1,000 more 3pointers than Miller and more than 700 more than Allen through the same span in their careers. Curry, though, is quick to note that, if not for Miller, Allen and the other worldclass shooters who came before him, he wouldn’t have blossomed into the player he has become.
As a kid growing up in Charlotte, N. C., Curry learned how to shoot 3pointers from his father, Dell, who hit 1,245 3s — at a 40.2% clip — in 16 NBA seasons. When not watching his dad, Curry often pored over video of Miller and Allen.
What Curry most appreciated was their knack for moving off the ball to create open looks that otherwise wouldn’t be available. Though Curry isn’t a catch-and-shoot artist in the same way as Miller or Allen, he has gone back and reviewed their game video in recent years when trying to maximize the nuances of the Warriors’ read-and-react system.
Curry tried to watch as many games as he could when Allen was chasing Miller’s 3pointers record in the 201011 season. Curry recalls Allen walking over to greet Miller, sitting courtside as an analyst for TNT, after Allen drained a firstquarter 3 against the Lakers to pass Miller on the alltime list.
“That moment was special for guys who love to shoot the basketball,” Curry said in 2019.
From time to time, Curry asks Fraser about his lone season working with Miller as a member of Larry Brown’s Indiana staff. The stories about Miller’s big shots and feud with director Spike Lee still make Curry smile.
Someday, perhaps decades from now, a player will be on the verge of passing Curry on the 3pointers list — just as Curry is about to do to Miller. If that happens, Curry will take pride in knowing that his successes beyond the arc likely played a role — either directly or indirectly — in getting that person to practice his 3point shot.
“One generation builds off the next, which is what makes it great,” Fraser said. “Right now, there are kids around the world in No. 30 Warriors jerseys trying to be the next Steph Curry. And that’s how it should be.”