Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. LeBron James.
They inspired generations of hyper-athletic, rim-rocking NBA players. But one name is bucking the trend and influencing young long-range bombers.
Warriors guard Stephen Curry is far and away the game’s top shooter this season — and arguably could be the best the sport has ever seen. With his lightning-quick release, off-the-charts accuracy, and ridiculous ballhandling skills, defenses can’t stop him.
I mean, seriously, he’s outperforming his video-game counterparts.
And no one expected him to be this good.
At 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, Curry was an undersized sharpshooting guard who rose to national fame after leading tiny Davidson College to the Elite Eight of the 2008 NCAA Tournament.
Bleacher Report said his best-case scenario in the NBA would be to have a Mike Bibby-esque career. NBADraft.net compared him with former Denver star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.
While both are good players, with all due respect, Curry is on a completely different level. Let’s look at his numbers this season:
• Through 19 games, he’s made 94 3-pointers. That’s an astonishing average of 4.9 a game. If he continues at this pace, he’ll finish with 406. By the way, the NBA record (which he owns) is 286. To put it in another light, players making 200 3-pointers in a season has only been accomplished 44 times.
• Curry is averaging career-bests in points (31.6), rebounds (5.2) and steals (2.5). And he’s finding his teammates, dishing out 6.0 assists per game.
• He’s finding his way to the charity stripe 6.3 times a game, capitalizing on 94.1 percent of his free throws. And even though he’s attempting more than half of his field goals from beyond the arc, he is shooting 51.2 percent from the field.
• And probably the most impressive stat: The Warriors are 19-0.
Here’s the scary part: He’s barely entering his prime. Curry is 27 years old.
Curry is leaving his mark on the game, but his legacy won’t be seen this year. It will show up five, 10 years down the road when the younger generation who grew up watching him play imitate his style. Like LeBron saying he “wanted to be just like” Kobe, so goes the next great superstar saying he wanted to be just like Steph.
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• ? NFL reporter Troy E. Renck answers this and more in this week’s Broncos Mailbag.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Academy Award-winning actress Julianne Moore turns 55.
Joe Nguyen: jnguyen@denverpost.com or
