Stephen Curry was no different from other 90s kids, ogling Michael Jordan and Vince Carter while donning their kicks on court.
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One thing people forget about Steph is that he’s grown up in a variety of different places. His dad, Dell Curry, was an NBA veteran who played for Charlotte and Toronto, among other teams.
During the course of his career, Dell took Sonya and his kids along wherever he happened to be playing. Steph was consequently born in a hospital in Akron – the same one as LeBron James – because Dell happened to be on the Cavs at the time.
Steph was probably at his most impressionable when Dell was on the Toronto Raptors. It was also a time when the league was looking for a player to wow them in Michael Jordan-like fashion. And there was nobody who ‘Aired’ quite like Vince Carter at the time.
Vince Carter soon became the same kind of playground legend as all kids wore his sneakers and dreamed of pulling off his incredible contest dunks. Stephen Curry clearly was on that bandwagon too.
“I had Jordans, the Vince Carter shoe was my first one”: Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry turned up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon early in the 2017-18 NBA season to promote his UA Curry 4 shoes, which had just debuted in stores offline and online back then.
Steph first expressed his gratitude for being able to play while wearing his very own sneakers. He was promptly asked by Fallon about some early memories of basketball shoes. Given that Steph was born in the late 80s, he grew up in the Michael Jordan era. Fallon’s guess turned out to be correct, but Steph also revealed that his first shoe was probably an iconic one from the Vince Carter line:
“We had Jordans growing up. My first-ever shoe that I remember playing in was a Vince Carter shoe. The Shox back in the day? Way back in the day.”
Vince Carter in the Nike Shox VC 4 from 2004 tonight #SacramentoProud pic.twitter.com/BMTOTtDdOs
— B/R Kicks (@brkicks) February 23, 2018
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