Stephen Curry wasn’t always a two-time MVP and the biggest star of a team that might be on the way to its third NBA Finals appearance in three years. And even though the Cliffs Notes of his rise are well known by this point, as with any superstar, there’s more to the story.
The son of an NBA sharpshooting father and a former college volleyball playing mother who was under-recruited and starred at a college only a couple dozen miles from where he grew up, Curry made Davidson a Cinderella, then was overlooked and fell to the seventh pick and Golden State in 2009. After overcoming injuries early on in his career, Curry rocketed up the shooting record books, and helped make the Warriors into the budding dynasty they are today.
But now Marcus Thompson, columnist from the Bay Area News Group, has taken Curry’s story even further. A columnist who was around the team since before Curry was even in the Bay, Thompson discusses deeper levels of the MVP’s character in his new book Golden.
“He’s known as a nice guy and that’s what everyone knows him by,” Thompson told DIME. “But he’s got that killer drive like Kobe [Bryant] and Michael [Jordan]. It was just very interesting to see so many people talk about it that are close to him. Like, people don’t really understand, Steph is a monster. I think Steve Kerr put it to me best, he said ‘he’s humble off-the-court and arrogant on it.’”
The book goes through everything from his already illustrious NBA career to his family life and just how he’s become one of the best players in the league. Thompson’s background and familiarity with the Warriors only helps in understanding Curry’s career path and what he means to Golden State that much more.
From the book:
“Most NBA players are winners of a genetic lottery. They either reach heights of rarified air or have been blessed with exceptional physical gifts, trending them towards basketball success. The great ones are usually endowed with both: size and talent. See LeBron James in the dictionary. Curry, on the other hand, could blend into the line at a Starbucks, and yet bends the game to his will. And he isn’t freakishly athletic in the traditional sense. He isn’t a high-jumping, blazing fast, muscle-bound anomaly. He represents everyone who is small in stature yet has the biggest of dreams. Curry is proof regular packages can be extraordinary gifts.”
Of course, while Curry is the best selling jersey, along with one of the most popular names in the game, it doesn’t mean the book just goes through the good. And even while the book is written by a Warriors writer and is about a Warriors player, it doesn’t mean the story is all for feels.
Thompson touches on the hatred towards Curry from a national perspective and has many stories detailing Curry being singled out in many scenarios early-on. In fact, the book has a chapter titled “Curry Hate,” which chronologically goes through instances where Curry was nicknamed, picked on, or put down in a variety of ways. The hate helped created who he is today, both on and off the court.
Perhaps the most interesting focal point of the book is learning how much Curry is similar to his mother. Many would think his father Dell, who played 16 seasons in the NBA, was more of the influence based on the fact that he played in the NBA, was a shooter, and had similar traits to Curry. But Thompson says that it was shocking to find out how much his mother played a role in Curry’s success.
“I did not know how integral his mother was to his story,” Thompson says. “That changed the course of the book because I was ready to go with the idea that he’s an NBA player and his dad is NBA player. But the more I got close with the people early in his life, it was easy to tell that he’s more like his mother than his father. And then you get to thinking that his dad was an NBA player, so she was probably around Steph much more than his father during his childhood years.”
The book is available to purchase on Amazon and any major bookseller.
