Jack's hoop was never much to look at. Its finest feature, by far, was the old reliable street lamp that hovered overhead and dutifully blinked on at dusk, bathing the key in warm yellow light. But this was Jack's plan all along: Only people who truly loved the game and understood the commitment it required would stick past dark on his country court.
The soft wings of the backboard had more give than a fence gate. The thick steel rim offered no absolution; only shots placed perfectly in the middle of the cylinder passed through. The institutional green metal breaker box just behind the hoop gave off a constant static hum that lured a shooter's focus away from the target. And the splintery wooden utility pole wasn't squared to a single landmark -- not the white ranch-style house, not the driveway, not the Blue Ridge mountains to the south or the creek to the north. So every shot required instant, expert recalibration.
Years of toil in the sun and mud honed Dell's fluid, deadly jumper -- a shot that produced a state title, a scholarship to Virginia Tech and a 16-year NBA career, mostly in Charlotte, that ended in 2002. And when Dell and his wife, Sonya, started their own family, their first child, Wardell Stephen Curry II, got more than just his name from Grandpa Jack. Stephen inherited the hoop and the same deep abiding love for the game it evokes. During frequent childhood trips to Grottoes, a sleepy mix of horse farms and trailer parks an hour northwest of Charlottesville, Stephen and his younger brother Seth (who played at Duke) would barely wait for the car to stop rolling before darting around back to start shooting. Their grandma, Juanita, 79, whom everyone calls Duckie, knew that if she wanted a kiss hello she had to position herself between the car and the hoop. (Jack died when Stephen was 2.) This is where Curry's love of the long ball was born, his trying to be the first one in the family to swish it from 60 feet, blind, peeking around the corner from the top kitchen step. "I always felt like the love and the lessons of that hoop got passed down to me," Stephen says. "It's crazy to think about how everything kinda started right there at this house with this one old hoop."
This season in Golden State, the legend grows larger by the minute. Nearly every night since the All-Star Game -- for which Curry was the top vote-getter and where he sank 13 straight shots to win the 3-point contest -- he's been expanding the lore of Jack's hoop as well as the parameters by which we define point guard greatness. Yes, his stats are MVP-worthy: Through March 24, he ranked seventh in points (23.4 per game), sixth in assists (7.9) and third in steals (2.1). Yes, he has the fourth-highest 3-point percentage, 43.6 percent, in NBA history and has led the league in total 3s since 2012, if you're counting. And yes, in six years, he has catapulted Golden State from perennial nonfactor to title favorite. But Curry's evolution this season is about something more profound than shooting, stats or hardware. The point guard groomed by that historic hoop in Grottoes has become the game's future.
Curry is standing at the forefront of a new era of playmaker. For the first time since Magic Johnson took an evolutionary leap for the position, we're witnessing the ultimate embodiment of the point guard. Not a shooter like Steve Nash, a passer like John Stockton, a defender like Gary Payton or a floor general like Isiah Thomas. Someone with the ability to do it all, excelling in each category while elevating everyone around him and then topping it the very next night: basketball's new 6-foot-3, 190-pound unstoppable force. "He's lethal," says Curry's coach, Steve Kerr. "He's mesmerizing," says his teammate Klay Thompson. He's the "best shooter I've ever seen," says his president, Barack Obama.
Oftentimes he's all three at once. During a 106-98 win over the Clippers on March 8, Curry needed all of seven seconds to transform LA's defense from a group of elite athletes to a gaggle of bewildered senior citizens stammering around at the wrong connecting gate. Up by 10 with just under nine minutes left in the third, Curry dribbled past half court near the high left wing and used a pick to split defenders Matt Barnes and Chris Paul. When he re-emerged, 7-1 power forward Spencer Hawes and center DeAndre Jordan had walled off his escape to the basket. Curry had a split second left before the Clippers converged on him like a junkyard car crusher. He stopped on a dime, dribbled backward through his legs to his left hand, then returned the ball behind his back to his right. The move caused Paul and Jordan to lunge awkwardly into the vortex Curry no longer occupied. Curry then spun away from the basket (and what looked like an impending bear hug from an exasperated Hawes) before dribble-lunging, back, 3 feet behind the arc, as if leaping a mud puddle in Jack Curry's gravel driveway.
In the blink of an eye -- well, less, actually -- Curry planted, coiled, elevated and snapped his wrist. Splash. "That could be the greatest move I've ever seen live," blurted stunned ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy, who coached against Michael Jordan many times. When his colleagues giggled at the suggestion, though, Van Gundy growled back without hesitation, "No, I'm being serious."
The sequence had everything: court presence, ballhandling, flawless shooting fundamentals, creativity and, above all, major, major cojones. It left Kerr looking like a young Macaulay Culkin on the bench. And across the country, it had Grandma Duckie cheering from her favorite burgundy chair in front of the TV. "Each time Stephen does his thing, we all picture big Jack up in heaven, nudging all the angels, gathering 'em up," says Steph's aunt and Dell's sister, Jackie Curry. "And he's yelling and pointing, 'Look, look down there at what I did! Y'all know I started this, right? Started all this with just that one little hoop, right there.'"
Years of toil in the sun and mud honed Dell's fluid, deadly jumper -- a shot that produced a state title, a scholarship to Virginia Tech and a 16-year NBA career, mostly in Charlotte, that ended in 2002. And when Dell and his wife, Sonya, started their own family, their first child, Wardell Stephen Curry II, got more than just his name from Grandpa Jack. Stephen inherited the hoop and the same deep abiding love for the game it evokes. During frequent childhood trips to Grottoes, a sleepy mix of horse farms and trailer parks an hour northwest of Charlottesville, Stephen and his younger brother Seth (who played at Duke) would barely wait for the car to stop rolling before darting around back to start shooting. Their grandma, Juanita, 79, whom everyone calls Duckie, knew that if she wanted a kiss hello she had to position herself between the car and the hoop. (Jack died when Stephen was 2.) This is where Curry's love of the long ball was born, his trying to be the first one in the family to swish it from 60 feet, blind, peeking around the corner from the top kitchen step. "I always felt like the love and the lessons of that hoop got passed down to me," Stephen says. "It's crazy to think about how everything kinda started right there at this house with this one old hoop."
This season in Golden State, the legend grows larger by the minute. Nearly every night since the All-Star Game -- for which Curry was the top vote-getter and where he sank 13 straight shots to win the 3-point contest -- he's been expanding the lore of Jack's hoop as well as the parameters by which we define point guard greatness. Yes, his stats are MVP-worthy: Through March 24, he ranked seventh in points (23.4 per game), sixth in assists (7.9) and third in steals (2.1). Yes, he has the fourth-highest 3-point percentage, 43.6 percent, in NBA history and has led the league in total 3s since 2012, if you're counting. And yes, in six years, he has catapulted Golden State from perennial nonfactor to title favorite. But Curry's evolution this season is about something more profound than shooting, stats or hardware. The point guard groomed by that historic hoop in Grottoes has become the game's future.
Curry is standing at the forefront of a new era of playmaker. For the first time since Magic Johnson took an evolutionary leap for the position, we're witnessing the ultimate embodiment of the point guard. Not a shooter like Steve Nash, a passer like John Stockton, a defender like Gary Payton or a floor general like Isiah Thomas. Someone with the ability to do it all, excelling in each category while elevating everyone around him and then topping it the very next night: basketball's new 6-foot-3, 190-pound unstoppable force. "He's lethal," says Curry's coach, Steve Kerr. "He's mesmerizing," says his teammate Klay Thompson. He's the "best shooter I've ever seen," says his president, Barack Obama.
Oftentimes he's all three at once. During a 106-98 win over the Clippers on March 8, Curry needed all of seven seconds to transform LA's defense from a group of elite athletes to a gaggle of bewildered senior citizens stammering around at the wrong connecting gate. Up by 10 with just under nine minutes left in the third, Curry dribbled past half court near the high left wing and used a pick to split defenders Matt Barnes and Chris Paul. When he re-emerged, 7-1 power forward Spencer Hawes and center DeAndre Jordan had walled off his escape to the basket. Curry had a split second left before the Clippers converged on him like a junkyard car crusher. He stopped on a dime, dribbled backward through his legs to his left hand, then returned the ball behind his back to his right. The move caused Paul and Jordan to lunge awkwardly into the vortex Curry no longer occupied. Curry then spun away from the basket (and what looked like an impending bear hug from an exasperated Hawes) before dribble-lunging, back, 3 feet behind the arc, as if leaping a mud puddle in Jack Curry's gravel driveway.
In the blink of an eye -- well, less, actually -- Curry planted, coiled, elevated and snapped his wrist. Splash. "That could be the greatest move I've ever seen live," blurted stunned ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy, who coached against Michael Jordan many times. When his colleagues giggled at the suggestion, though, Van Gundy growled back without hesitation, "No, I'm being serious."
The sequence had everything: court presence, ballhandling, flawless shooting fundamentals, creativity and, above all, major, major cojones. It left Kerr looking like a young Macaulay Culkin on the bench. And across the country, it had Grandma Duckie cheering from her favorite burgundy chair in front of the TV. "Each time Stephen does his thing, we all picture big Jack up in heaven, nudging all the angels, gathering 'em up," says Steph's aunt and Dell's sister, Jackie Curry. "And he's yelling and pointing, 'Look, look down there at what I did! Y'all know I started this, right? Started all this with just that one little hoop, right there.'"
