DESIGNER GENES

By: Stephen Jared House



You’ve heard about the kid. His famous scoring shows he put on in college. Beating Goliath (Georgetown) in the NCCA Tournament, single handily almost making the Final Four at Davidson! Leading all of men’s college basketball in scoring last season while teams zeroed in their defense on him night after night. Stephen Curry captured the hearts of Americans in his three years playing basketball for Davidson, a tiny school is a sleepy little town tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Curry is also known for another reason. He has been known for this before he ever hit his first three, or laced up his first pair of Nike’s. He’s the son of one of the greatest shooters in the history of the National Basketball Association, Dell Curry. He has always heard people say, “Hey, that’s Stephen Curry, he’s the son of Dell Curry” Talk about a long shadow to try to get out from under!
Let’s be honest, college basketball is more popular with mainstream America than the NBA. Anyone who watched college basketball knows who Stephen Curry was. But I would wager that only about fifty percent of those people know where Curry is playing now. A.) because he plays for the Golden State Warriors and B.) because, well he’s in the NBA. Now while the Warriors aren’t on national television regularly, they do have a few games on in prime time, but being on the west coast they start at eleven pm, and unless you are a writer like me, a college student, or an upper addict you probably won’t be staying up to watch Golden State and Portland play until one o’clock or later in the morning.
I was a critic of Curry’s when he was drafted and my prognostication for him was, “Going to be a good player, never great. Starter for a good team, bench player for a championship caliber team. One dimensional role player who will knock down open shots, but can’t create for himself because of size and strength and certainly can’t play defense.” Go back look it up on my older posts. Yeah I know, I’m eating crow as I type. Now I’m not saying that if you put Curry on the Lakers that he would start, Hell no, but just about any other team he would be, and all but the defensive assessment that I made have been proven wrong. I will stand by that til the day I die that he will never be able to play defense! But back to where I foolishly said he couldn’t create his own shot, we let’s look at his stat line from Wednesday night, the last game before the All-Star break. Mr. Curry recorded seven 3’s, 10 rebounds, 13 assists 3 steals, and 36 points all while shoot 50 percent from the floor that night! That’s a triple-double that you see from the likes of LeBron James and it still makes you say, Wow! Not too shabby.
As a rookie he is averaging 14.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 4.9 assists. Those would be Rookie of the Year number if not for the fact that Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings are having even better years. The most impressive stat that pops out to me when I see the box score is not the points or the threes but rather the time he plays. Curry averages 34 and a half minutes per game. A lot of veteran starters don’t play that much.
Father Dell was a sniper and one of the best ever. He is still the all-time scoring leader for the Charlotte Hornets/Bobcats. He was the recipient of the 1994 NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award and ranks 28th all-time in three’s made. But if Stephen Curry keeps making progress he might make people start to say, Hey, that’s “Dell Curry, his son is Stephen Curry.”

-Stephen Jared House