Warriors' Steph Curry is king of fling

JASON RICHARDS was the sophomore starting point guard for his college team when he decided to ride along with an assistant coach to go and see a recruit play a high school game.

It was a pretty mature move for Richards, as the player they were going to scout was also a point guard, with a pretty big reputation. There were two ways Richards could have looked at the recruit. One, he could have seen someone who was going to come in and threaten his job. Or he could have seen a talent that would have helped the team improve.

He chose the latter. Rather, he was forced to choose the latter when he saw the talent on the floor at the Charlotte Christian School.

Widening the eyes of Richards was a rail-thin point guard with the face of a fifth grader named Steph Curry.

"It was interesting when I went to that high school game with one of our Davidson assistants," remembered Richards, now on the basketball staff at the University of Pittsburgh. "Right away I knew he was special with how he controlled the game. It was funny because he looked like he was 12. I still give him a hard time about that. But he was such a dynamic shooter. Everything on the floor just came so easy to him and he controlled it. We all knew he was the son of a former NBA player (Dell Curry) and he had the potential to be very, very good. I knew pretty much right away that with him we had a chance to be good and that he could have a pretty special impact."

Curry simply tore it up during his three seasons at Davidson, where he led Division I in scoring his final season (28.6), became the all-time Southern Conference leading scorer and broke just about every Davidson offensive record. He also helped Richards to lead the country in assists during his senior season.

But when asked if he foresaw that Curry would become the star he is today, Richards simply said: "No way."

Steph Curry owns the basketball world right now. In just his seventh season in the league, he has his Golden State Warriors playing at a different level than any other team in the league. He garnered MVP regular-season honors last season while leading the Warriors to their first NBA title since 1975. He is on a pace to crush his own record for three-pointers made in a season this year (he has 213 so far, the record is 286 set last season) and has the Warriors on track to break the regular-season win total of 72 set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. He has surpassed rock-star status, making the Warriors the biggest draw in all of the four major sports right now. They visit the 76ers on Saturday for their only stop this season at the Wells Fargo Center.

People in the know don't only talk about him being one of the best players in the league right now, they talk about him at a much higher level.

"When you talk about the best shooters of all time you bring up names like Larry Bird, Chris Mullen, Ray Allen," said a Western Conference executive. "But if someone says he's the best shooter ever to play in the league, I would have trouble arguing against it. Plus, he's the best ballhandler I've seen since Pete Maravich, and he's better than him."

Curry's style has changed the game. He is a point guard who has shooting range that begins just after he crosses halfcourt. And if a defender decides to play too closely to him, his ballhandling will take him around the defender and set up either a floating runner, a spot-up jumper, a deft pass that could be a no-look alley-oop or a behind-the-back to the three-point line.

He is on a level of all-around play right now that rivals the way Wayne Gretzky owned the game of hockey back in his prime.

"I think if you asked me that, say four or five years ago, I would have said 'What a great shooter,' '' said Sixers coach Brett Brown, who said Curry is the best shooter he's ever seen. "Then about two years ago I would have said, 'He's got an amazing handle.' His handle sets up his shot. And now I cannot believe his balance. I look at his feet. His pace of his game where it's like this cocky side of pace and gears. He can go from 80 (mph) to 10 back to 70 back down to 20, but his balance is off-the-charts great. I think his balance sets up his handle, which sets up his shot. Anybody that can score with the ease that he did against one of the great defensive teams in the past decade - look at the Spurs' defensive numbers, it's jaw-dropping and very historical with the numbers that they are producing - I give Steph a lot of credit scoring against that defense."

Brown was referring to the recent contest between the Warriors and San Antonio, the most anticipated regular-season game in a long time. It turned out to be no contest, really, as Curry scored 37 points and hit six three-pointers - while sitting the entire fourth quarter - in leading the Warriors to a 30-point win.

It hasn't always come so easy to Curry, and that he would even have a future in basketball wasn't a sure thing when he was being looked at by Davidson.

It was between his freshman and sophomore seasons in college when Dell Curry and his oldest son knew changes needed to be made. So they worked, tirelessly, on changing Steph's shot. Dell said his son put in eight hours a day during the summer. Every day.

"Sophomore year in college at Davidson," Dell Curry said of when he thought his son could be an NBA player. "They played a really tough non-conference schedule against the big, high Division-I teams. He was playing very well, scoring the basketball and competing. That's when I saw the talent really go to the next level with his competitive spirit and his will to win.

"As a high school player I thought he'd just be a good college player. I thought he could play high D-I, but he was 6-foot, 145 (pounds) as a senior, it didn't meet the eye test for the high level D-I schools. But everything happens for a reason. We say that a lot. I really believe that Davidson was the right fit for him from the standpoint of their schedule and their coach. Bob McKillop did a wonderful job of developing his talent, challenging him on a daily basis."

Steph, and his brother Seth, now playing for the Sacramento Kings, were challenged a lot as players by their father growing up. Dell played 16 years in the NBA and was a terrific long-range shooter. He talks about his sons as though he is a scout talking about just another player, though you can see the pride in his eyes.

"It's just God-given abilities in different ways and you just have to develop those skills that you have and try to work on the ones that you're weaker at, and I think that is what Steph has done every year," he said. "Every summer he has gotten better. He has changed parts of his game. Even from a leadership role. That is a part of the game that makes your overall game better. I think he's worked on that as well."

If it was called for, he'd probably be the best passer in the league. He still might be, anyway. He is tied for second in the NBA in steals at 2.2 a game. That he is a Carolina Panthers fan and the Super Bowl will be played in the Bay Area just adds to how great it is to be Steph Curry right now. And at 27, it may only get better.

"I could tell he had a gift for work ethic," Richards said. "He's always looking to improve. Always in the gym extra time, in the summer doing stuff. He's a gym rat, always there. Never seen anyone like it. He'll work on anything. You can see that. Look at his ballhandling, his passing. His shooting was always out of this stratosphere. He came back after freshman summer and he was unguardable.

"It's crazy to see it. I'd be lying to you if I said I saw this coming. I don't think anyone could have imagined he could do what he's done. He played point his junior year at Davidson after being a shooting guard the first two years and people said he couldn't do that in the NBA. Now, he could go down as one of the greatest of all time."

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