Warriors star talks about aging gracefully in the NBA, legacy, Under Armour’s throwback ‘Protect this House’ campaign and more
Curry was born on March 14, 1988, in Akron, Ohio. The two-time NBA MVP was selected by the Warriors No. 7 overall in the 2009 NBA draft. Curry has gone on to become a four-time NBA champion and a nine-time NBA All-Star. The 6-foot-2, 185-pounder is also widely considered the NBA’s greatest shooter of all time and is the league’s career leader in 3-point field goals made.
Curry joked in recent years that his dad told him that you know you’re getting old as an NBA player when you start having “old man injuries.” Stephen Curry has missed 26 games for the Warriors this season due to injury. But when the NBA 75th Anniversary Team member has been on the floor this season he has been sensational, averaging 29.6 points, 6.3 assists, a career-high 6.3 rebounds and 5 3-pointers made per game.
“He’s definitely the best conditioned athlete I’ve ever been around in the NBA,” said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “No one combines the work ethic with the skillset and the ability to put that all together in this package of incredible endurance and quickness. Every time he comes back, I watch him work.
“He is a guy who is going to age well. He is still playing at really high level. It is incredible to watch him work.”
Curry and Draymond Green are longtime Warriors teammates who have won four NBA titles together. Green still marvels at Curry’s accomplishments and described him as “one of the most impactful” NBA players ever.
“It’s incredible. Because of what LeBron has done after 35, people have taken for granted what that age means in the NBA,” Green said of Curry to Andscape. “Especially, a guard [Curry’s] size. You’ve seen players a little bigger go longer, but not at his size. I think it is so special and impressive what he is doing. The attention to detail to what he is doing on a daily basis puts him in position to be as great as it is. It is the most incredible thing to me. To just watch him at that size, dominate at this age, we’ve never seen anything like this.”
What also can be remarkable for Curry at his age is the company he would enter by winning a fifth NBA championship. NBA icons with five or more championships include Bill Russell (11), Bob Cousy (six), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six), Michael Jordan (six), Scottie Pippens (six), Magic Johnson (five), Kobe Bryant (five) and Tim Duncan (five). While the Warriors are in the midst of a challenge just to make the playoffs this season, Curry said the goal is to still win a fifth title this season.
“It would mean everything, because at one point it was believed that we were done even before last season,” Curry said of winning a fifth title in a recent interview through Under Armour. “So, it’s just a matter of feeling like you can get greedy, and you obviously understand every championship that you get, you put yourself in another echelon of legends that have won at the highest of high levels. Obviously, Bill Russell, nobody’s going to catch that. But to get to Jordan winning six and Kobe winning five, the [San Antonio] Spurs’ Tim Duncan. So, all that stuff is about the inherent legacy that you’ll continue to create even though we’ve done a lot and that’s why we still work tirelessly to make that a reality again.”
