Steph Curry captures America’s imagination

I remember Steph Curry from his early days at Davidson College in North Carolina. He was a skilled and athletic scorer who propelled his small school to the national spotlight when the Wildcats reached the 2008 Elite Eight, where they fell just two points shy of the eventual national champion Kansas Jayhawks in a March Madness classic.

During Curry’s final college season Davidson failed to return to the NCAA tournament despite the fact that he led college basketball in scoring and was a first team All-American.

When the NBA draft came along I distinctly recall the Golden State Warriors selecting him as a worthy lottery pick.

The Warriors were in full-on rebuilding mode. However, it seemed like Curry would be a solid fit alongside Golden State’s other young guard Monta Ellis from Missippi.

After that, Steph fell off the map for a while. He got off to a good start, finishing as the runner-up for the Rookie of the Year award and putting up about 18 points per game for his first two seasons. However, Golden State’s continued struggles kept him out of the spotlight.

Curry faced major setbacks in the 2011-2012 season. Due to recurring ankle injuries he played less than a third of Golden State’s games and watched Ellis get shipped to Milwaukee for big-man Andrew Bogut.

This deal made room for the young Klay Thompson from Washington State, but also made it clear that the Warriors would look to retry what had been an unsuccessful rebuilding process.

Curry and the Warriors were on a steady decline. He was a decent player on a team striving for mediocrity.

It therefore came as quite the surprise to all when the Warriors, under their second-year coach Mark Jackson, unexpectedly reached the playoffs in the 2012-2013 season in the almighty Western Conference, eventually reaching the Second Round before getting knocked off by the San Antonio Spurs.

The following season was much of the same, with the Warriors once again demonstrating their legitimacy as a contender, but falling just short of the Clippers in a thrilling seven-game series in the First Round.

The Warriors were good, but not quite at that upper-tier where they needed to be in order to be seriously considered as a championship contender; They just needed a tweak to solidify their spot among the NBA’s elite.

That tweak was the controversial replacement of Coach Jackson with Steve Kerr, a move that is not looking too controversial anymore.

Now, we have reached the point when everybody has jumped on the Warriors bandwagon. To sum it up, Curry took the league by storm during the 2014-2015 season, winning the MVP — along with a handful of other accolades — and leading the Warriors to both a league-best 67-15 record and to a championship over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. After the season, many criticized Golden State, saying that the only reason that they won it all was because their opponents were facing injuries (e.g., their opponents in the Finals, the Cavaliers, were missing stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love).

These criticisms undoubtedly fueled the Warriors, as this season has been better than last in every way. The Warriors are on a historic winning pace, as they look to overtake Kerr’s 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls for the best single season record of all-time, which currently stands at 72-10.

Curry is not only on his way to another MVP award, but may actually be named as the Most Improved Player as well. For the stats people, his numbers are staggering, but you really have to watch this guy to see why he is being labeled the greatest shooter of all-time.

Curry has redefined long-distance shooting, setting the record for most three-pointers in a season in 2012-2013, before topping it in 2014-2015 and again this season during that Oklahoma City game. Yeah, he broke the record in February, two months before the end of the season. The accuracy that he shoots with over such a large quantity of attempts is unparalleled by that of any other basketball player, and actually of that by any other athlete for any other statistic in general. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban even said that the three-point line should be moved back, due to the prevalence of the three-point shot in today’s game, which is headlined by Curry’s nightly, extraordinary performances from beyond the arc.

The only thing left to ask is what Steph’s numbers would look like if he ever had to play significant minutes in the fourth quarter — which rarely happens due to all of Golden State’s blowout wins.

Off the court, Curry is just as impressive. In an era defined by professional athletes making highly questionable decisions, Steph does all of the right things. He has a record that is clean as a whistle (or his jump-shot!), he always smiles, he has made his family just as popular as him (if not more) and, most of all, he has made it seem like anyone can do what he does. After all, he is just a little over six feet tall and does not have superhero-esque muscles like most NBA stars; He just puts in the work and continues to polish his game.

Enough about the best player in the game, let’s talk about his supporting cast. It takes a lot more than one player to have the best team of all time and Golden State has quite a balanced attack behind Steph.

First, Klay Thomson, Steph’s “Splash Brother,” is not too shabby of a shooter either. He knocked off Curry in this year’s Three-Point Contest and had the 10th most threes in a season in NBA history last year. His greatest individual achievement though, was his record-breaking 37-point third quarter last season, during which he made all 13 of his shots, including all nine of his threes. Are you kidding?

Then there is Draymond Green, the 35th pick in the 2012 draft, who has transformed into one of the league’s greatest triple-double threats and a defensive juggernaut, after being a complete nobody during his first two seasons in the league. It is Green’s inspiring energy and passion, as well as his grit, which drive the Warriors on a regular basis on their ascent into the record books.

By the way, none of those guys even won last year’s NBA Finals MVP award. That honor belongs to Andre Iguodala, who appeared to be on the decline before signing with the Warriors in 2013. He took home the prestigious award last season after not even being a starter going into the Finals.

The rest of the cast — highlighted by Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli and Marreese Speights (among others) — is mostly made up of players who at some point or another were given up on. However, they have found a home in the Bay Area on a team that is now jam-packed with stars but is defined by absolute selflessness. Every night I am confident picking the Warriors to win, but I cannot possibly predict who will lead the way on any given night.

The coaching deserves a ton of credit as well. With Kerr suffering from back problems at the beginning of this season, assistant coach Luke Walton led Golden State to a 39-4 record before Kerr returned and elevated Golden State’s level of play even more. Through the end of February, they had lost only one game since Kerr’s return in January, one.

The Warriors have not lost a home game since last January, they have destroyed the Spurs, they have pummeled the Cavaliers and, other than when they have played close games against the Thunder and the Clippers, they have appeared seemingly invincible against the entirety of the league.

“Dub Nation” and Curry are here to stay. And if Kevin Durant actually signs with Golden State this summer, there will be — as the Miami Heat “Big 3” had promised — not two [titles], not three, not four, not...