It’s not too often that a basketball player comes along who transforms the game, literally. Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan… Of course, the list is short. Those legends and their role in the evolution of the game are beyond debate. And joining them is the one player who had an indelible hand in changing the modern game: Steph Curry.
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There has never been an outside shooter like Steph. Even going back to his days at Davidson, he displayed limitless range. And, despite being one of the shorter players on the court, he had the lightning-quick release to get his shot off against anybody, from anywhere.
Steph has completely rewritten the NBA record book when it comes to shooting. And after the 4-time champion’s success, the NBA took inspiration. Modern offenses run on shooting from beyond the arc, and teams are taking and making more 3s than ever. Steph is the one who started that trend.
In this week’s episode of Mind the Game, Steph joined Steve Nash, a player he’s often been compared to, and LeBron James, his longtime NBA Finals nemesis, for a free-flowing discussion. Yes, three great basketball minds on one forum. Now that’s special. And eventually, the topic turned to Steph’s prolific output from beyond the arc.
Steph revealed that Bob Myers, the former general manager of the Warriors, is the one who encouraged him to let it fly. “Bob Myers was the first one who told me, ‘Yo, you should shoot 15 3s a game.’ I was like, ‘What? Do you know how hard it is to get 12 good looks?'”
This was right around the time of the analytics movement in the league. And Steph said that Myers responded, “Why not? The math says 15 3s for you is great.”
Saying that it’s better to shoot more 3s is one thing. Actually running an offense that can create those openings is another. All the more tough since other teams are keyed on Steph because he was clearly the Warriors’ best player.
Nash asked how Steph and the Warriors set about achieving that goal. “The way that we created shots was a big part of it. The offense that [Steve Kerr] instilled, where it was less traditional pick-and-roll, less pick-on game, more movement, all that stuff,” the sharpshooter responded.
“The concept of 15 3s, cool. But they’re not all created equal in terms of game pressure, the rhythm and flow,” he explained.
“Is it one pass, shot? Is it the ball’s changed sides three times, and you’re coming off and you move, touch it, [and] get back, relocated. That’s a different shot percentage-wise than the exact same shot from the exact same spot on the floor in a different context. We started to understand that a little bit,” added Steph.
“And it just catered to my natural style of seeing the game,” he continued before naming Nash and Reggie Miller as influences in the way he played.
“The way I could get it both ways, on the ball and off the ball, as crazy as 200 extra 3s in a season sounded, it didn’t feel like that,” concluded the Warriors legend.
Steph led the league with 646 attempted 3s in the 2013-14 season on the way to winning his first MVP award. He then raised that bar all the way to 886 a season later, an enormous increase of 240 attempted 3s.
Volume usually lowers efficiency. But Steph’s 3-point shooting percentage went up, from 44.3% to 45.4.
How do you improve on an MVP season? By winning the award unanimously, the next time around. And that’s what Steph did after upping his 3-point output, becoming the first player in league history to do so.
