Proof Steph Curry Shoots Better With A Mouthguard Dangling Out Of His Mouth

stephen curry

USA TODAY Sports

In theory, one wears a mouthguard to, well, guard one’s mouth. Steph Curry, though, seems to have a mouthguard merely so he can chew on it. Oftentimes when you see Curry – and we see him a bunch because he’s the best player in the NBA – he will have his mouthguard dangling from his mouth, especially while he shoots free throws. It’s clearly become a habit for Curry, and now someone has crunched the numbers on his ubiquitous sometimes-mouth-wear.

The Wall Street Journal has dedicated itself to chronicling Curry’s mouth guard position while he shoots free throws. They looked at every free throw he took this season and found that his mouthguard was out of his mouth 84.7 percent of the time. Last year, that number was 63.5 percent. That’s a massive jump. How long will it be until Curry pops his mouthguard out 100 percent of the time when he’s at the charity stripe?

He may want to get there sooner rather than later, because playing with his mouthguard clearly isn’t distracting him in the slightest. Both last season and this season, Curry is shooting his free throws better while he fiddles with the mouthguard as opposed to just keeping it in his mouth. Granted, this postseason he is perfect on free throws with the mouthguard in, but he’s only attempted eight free throws like this, which is a very small sample size.

There are some habits that you should break, but Curry’s habit of chewing on his mouthguard apparently doesn’t need to be addressed.

(Via Wall Street Journal)

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