Among the various malaises that have plagued the Golden State Warriors in their quest for a three-peat was an unexpected one: After the All-Star break, Steph Curry was no longer an other-worldly shooter from three-point range.
After missing six of his nine threes in a two-point win over Houston on March 13, Curry had just finished an eight-game stretch of shooting 31.7 percent from beyond the arc. Not only is that far below Curry’s career average of 43.6 percent, it pales in comparison to the league average of 35.5 percent.
It was a significant enough concern that Curry decided to fix the problem by doing something he had previously avoided: wearing contact lenses, as reported by Marcus Thompson of The Athletic.
According to Thompson, Curry has suffered from a condition Keratoconus, or KC, throughout his life, which affects the way light enters his eye and thus leads to blurred or distorted vision. The Warriors star should have been wearing glasses or contacts already, but resisted until this latest slump provided him the necessary push.
He said he should be wearing glasses, but he doesn’t. Once, at his annual Christmas event, he gave attendees a free visit with an optometrist and glasses if they needed them. When addressing the crowd he joked about needing to get checked out, too. He was giving a hint.
It’s not uncommon for NBA players to resist getting glasses or contacts for fear of changing the way they see the court. Chris Paul, like Curry, also squinted on the court and avoided getting glasses by memorizing the eye chart at his doctor’s office before finally facing his fears and getting LASIK during the 2016 offseason.
Curry is probably grateful that he made the change, as he has made five three-pointers in each of his last nine games for a 51.4 percent clip. It’s a frightening thought for the rest of the league that Curry has untapped a cheat code to improve his game, but at least it answers the question of why arguably the greatest shooter the league has ever seen had a period where he looked mortal. So much for that.
