When Steph Curry was growing up, he got the unique opportunity to see many NBA superstars up close and personal thanks to his dad Dell, who played for 16 years in the league. Among the legends who Curry got to see play was 2016 basketball Hall-of-Fame finalist Allen Iverson. CSNPhilly.com recently caught up with Curry to ask him how it felt to watch A.I. do his thing live.
“He was a guy I loved watching, just his entertainment value and knowing his story. It was inspiring just to know that you can defy a lot of odds and be yourself while you’re out there on the court playing and changing the game. Everybody used to imitate his crossover moves, obviously starting with the one on [Michael] Jordan and every other one that he did in his career.”
In Dell Curry’s second-to-last NBA season, he was a member of a Toronto Raptors team that was led into the playoffs by Vince Carter and solid role players around him — like Antonio Davis, Morris Peterson, and Charles Oakley. Unfortunately, after beating the Knicks in the first round, the Raptors ran into the MVP of that season: Allen Iverson.
Toronto came close to advancing to their first ever Conference Finals that year, but A.I. averaged over 33 points, three steals and nearly seven assists per game in that series as he willed his team to a Game 7 win that Curry was lucky enough to be in attendance for.
“You’d see him out on the floor and you just kind of didn’t think what he was doing was possible. His motor never stopped. His competitiveness and desire out there, he played with so much spirit and passion. You loved watching A.I. play because of what he brought to the table.”
The feeling of admiration between the two all-time great guards is mutual, as Iverson recently said about Curry that the NBA “ain’t never seen nothing like” the Davidson product before.
If only Curry was ten years younger, we could have seen two of the best offensive point guards in league history go at it, but I suppose that is what NBA 2K is for.
(Via CSNPhilly.com)
