Curry keeps getting better
Opponents find no answers to ageless wonder
Since joining Steve Kerr’s staff seven months ago, Warriors playermentor coach Leandro Barbosa has introduced some members of the organization to his special horse medicine.
Made from the leaves of a shrub called arnica do mato and widely used to help horses recover from injuries, the liquid is not intended for human consumption. But Barbosa has been drinking it twice a day for eight years, and is adamant that it’s the reason he hasn’t gotten hurt.
Such an elixir seemingly would benefit Warriors guard Stephen Curry, to extend his prime. But Barbosa hasn’t even mentioned the horse medicine to his friend and former teammate.
“Steph might be 33, but he’s in better shape than 25yearolds,” Barbosa said. “Whatever he’s doing, it’s clearly working.”
Barbosa should know. As a bench player for that 201516 Warriors team that won an NBArecord 73 regularseason games, he had a courtside seat for Curry’s unanimous MVP season. A halfdecade later, Barbosa watches from behind the bench as Curry plays at such a transcendent level that some are left to wonder: Is this the best he has even been?
It’s a crazy thought, given that Curry’s unanimous MVP
season is widely considered the best offensive season a player has had in the modern NBA. To sweep all 131 firstplace votes, he shattered his season NBA record of 286 3pointers; became the first player to average 30 points per game in less than 35 minutes per game; and joined Kerr as the only players in league history to shoot at least 50% from the field, 45% from 3point range and 90% from the foul line.
Now at an age when many players contemplate retirement, Curry is averaging more points (31.3), more rebounds (5.6) and fewer fouls (1.8) than he did as a 28yearold in 201516. Most of his other numbers — the 48.9% clip from the field, the 42.7% clip from 3point range, the 5.8 assists, the 1.2 steals — aren’t far off from what he posted five years ago.
The two highestscoring games of Curry’s career, 62 points in a Jan. 3 win over the Trail Blazers and 57 points in a Feb. 6 loss to the Mavericks, have come this season. Curry’s 85 3pointers in April are the most by anyone in any month in NBA history, and he still has two games left in the month. In 13 of his past 14 games, he has scored at least 30 points, including a streak of 11.
Even Kerr, one of the most articulate coaches in sports, is struggling to find adjectives to describe Curry’s greatness. After watching Curry score 37 points and make seven 3pointers Sunday against the Kings, Kerr said, “It seems like I’ve run out of ways to describe Steph’s play. … I don’t know what else to say.”
This is because Kerr hasn’t seen anyone deliver a stretch like the one Curry is enjoying. Unlike 201516, when he benefited from the spacing Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala and Harrison Barnes provided, Curry has had little room to operate.
Opponents have sent tripleteams, boxand1 zones and gimmicky presses at him. But no team has figured out how to shut down Curry, a testament to his improved strength, new moves and increased aggressiveness.
Intent on being more effective inside, Curry added 5 pounds of muscle in the offseason. The extra heft has helped him dribble by multiple defenders and finish through contact. Roughly 29% of his shots have come within 10 feet of the rim — the highest clip of his career.
Curry is shooting 62.2% on those attempts despite a lack of surrounding space, which has left opponents with a nearimpossible conundrum: How do you defend a player just as efficient on floaters in traffic as wideopen 3pointers?
“The skill is limited by strength more often than not, and his strength is now really progressing at a rapid rate,” said Brandon Payne, Curry’s longtime trainer. “All of the things that he can do from a skill standpoint are magnified. They’re easier to execute physically now. He’s able to create more space, and he’s able to create with better balance because of the core strength that he has.”
Payne watches every Warriors game from his Charlotte home, and has noticed a trend: Teams will commit to gimmicky defenses initially, only to get discouraged once Curry drains a few contested shots. By the second or third quarter, they lapse into traditional doubleteams at him, hope for the best and shake their heads when Curry continues to make difficult layups and jumpers.
Part of what has made Curry an especially tricky assignment this season is that he is now a master at deceiving his defender for the fraction of a second he needs to get separation.
Long known for getting shots off the catch or on pullups in transition, Curry has become proficient at stepping back and releasing the ball before the defender can react. A careerhigh 17% of his 3pointers are stepback shots, and he’s hitting 55% of them. Often, when a jumper isn’t available, Curry uses a simple pump fake to create an open driving lane.
These moves were forged during grueling offseason shooting sessions. With more time to experiment last year because of the Warriors’ coronavirusshortened season, Curry spent weeks at Payne’s Woodside gym going over the nuances of misdirecting defenders.
“I’ve been blessed with a certain skill set and approach to the game that I’ve worked on, year after year after year,” Curry said. “And that work does pay off. The summers are hard. They’re the hardest times of the year because I really build up that intensity, and have a certain program that gets me in shape and gets me ready to sustain that over the course of the season.”
What’s scary for opposing defenses is that Payne is adamant that his famous client has yet to reach his peak. By doing things at 33 that he couldn’t do as a unanimous MVP at 28, Curry has defied expectations and raised questions about the aging process.
Payne has worked with Curry for two decades, and after watching all 1,110 of Curry’s shots this season, he told The Chronicle, “We’re still going up. This is not the peak. We still have a ways to go.”
Informed of Payne’s estimation that Curry has about five prime years left, Barbosa wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve been around the guy for years now,” Barbosa said. “He’s different. He doesn’t even need the horse medicine.”