If I had any reservations about our assertion that Steph Curry will win seven NBA titles before he’s done (check out the cover below), they vanished the other night while watching a single highlight. In a game against Sacramento, Curry drove into the paint, fired a no-look, behind-the-back pass to Draymond Green, rolled into the corner, got the ball back and threw up an uncontested three. Then, before his shot was even halfway to its destination—the bottom of the net, where 44.8 percent of Curry’s triples have ended up this season—he turned his back to the basket and headed back on defence. Curry is, without exaggeration, in another league. It’s as if he’s an NBA Jam character, perpetually “On Fire.” After watching that play against the Kings about 11 times, I wondered if maybe we’d undersold him on the cover.
How basketball has changed over the past 15 years—and Curry’s place at the very top of the game—is the focus of Michael Grange’s excellent cover story on Golden State’s superstar. “The new rules didn’t create Curry,” writes Grange, who has been covering the game for a couple of decades. “His is the kind of genius that finds its way to the forefront inevitably and organically. But the changes created a game in which what Curry does best is valued most.”
Prediction No. 2: A dozen diehard Michael Jordan fans will rip me on Twitter for Prediction No. 1
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