Celebrating Steph Curry as he turns 30

Sure, LeBron is Akron's favorite son and has done plenty for the community in his hometown. Technically, though, he and Curry share a birthplace. Many don't realize that Curry hails from Akron as well, born at Akron City Hospital in 1988. His father Dell was playing for the Cavaliers at the time, though it was his only season with the team. During the 2016 NBA Finals, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. even ran a promotion based on the fact that both stars were born in Akron.

By today's standards, Dell Curry was not a prolific three-point shooter. His career high was only 164 threes made in a season, a number his son routinely passes in the first 30 or so games of each season. Still, he once led the league in three-point percentage, shooting nearly 48 percent for the 1998-99 season. The elder Curry retired in 2002 as a career 40 percent shooter from beyond the arc.

The final years of Dell Curry's career played out in Canada, where he was a member of the Toronto Raptors. Steph Curry's winning ways got their start north of the border, as he led the Queensway Christian College's boys team to an undefeated season. He also won a provincial championship with the Toronto 5-0, a club team that played all over Ontario, in the process going up against future NBA players Cory Joseph and Kelly Olynyk. 

After his father's career ended, the Curry family moved back to Charlotte, where Stephen went mostly unnoticed by major colleges. Despite Curry racking up all-conference and all-state awards and leading his team to three conference championships and three state playoff appearances, most coaches balked at recruiting a player whose 160-pound frame seemed slight for high school competition, let alone Division I basketball. 

Dell Curry's career at Virginia Tech was a storied one. As a result, Stephen Curry hoped to follow in his father's footsteps. Even with his famous last name and the fact that his mother, Sonya, also played volleyball for the Hokies, Curry was offered only a walk-on spot with the team by then-head coach Seth Greenberg.

If Virginia Tech wasn't interested in Curry, Davidson was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Head coach Bob McKillop had been scouting Curry since Steph's sophomore year in high school, and the Wildcats made a hard push for Curry's services. They landed him, and McKillop, predicting the future, termed Curry "something special" before he ever played a game for Davidson.

OK, so not every epic story has an epic beginning. Curry's career at Davidson started with a whimper, especially by his current standards. In an outing against Eastern Michigan, he registered a respectable 15 points. Problem was, he also committed 13 turnovers in a game that offered a taste of what he could be but also a hint of "bad Curry." The bad vibes didn't last, though, as in his next game, Curry torched Michigan for 32 points.

Curry's freshman year ended with a loss to Maryland in the NCAA Tournament, despite scoring a game-high 30 points. His sophomore campaign, however, served as a national coming-out party. The Wildcats entered the tourney as a 10-seed, and behind Curry's 30-point second-half explosion, and 40 points overall, they dispatched Gonzaga in the first round. That was just a table-setter for what would follow, however.

This game didn't feature Curry's highest point total, and it wasn't against the highest-profile opponent of his career (that one would come later), but Curry's 30-point game, one that saw Davidson rally from 17 points down to defeat a powerhouse Hoyas squad, may have been his most dramatic effort. Georgetown was loaded and seen by many as a genuine Final Four threat, having advanced that far the previous season. Curry only had five points at halftime but exploded for 25 in the second half to pace a 74-70 Davidson win.

By Curry's junior year, he was a star. His shooting prowess was such that he became a fixture on highlight shows and a treasure for college basketball fans. LeBron James himself took notice in December 2008. Curry and the Wildcats took on NC State in Charlotte, on the Bobcats' home court. With James in attendance, Curry went off for 44 points, including a particularly memorable three-pointer from several feet behind the arc. James, already at that point recognized as arguably the game's best player, was moved to stand and applaud the performance.

After three sparkling years at Davidson, Curry opted to forego his senior season and enter the NBA Draft. The guy who got little if any interest from major colleges just three years prior went seventh overall to the Golden State Warriors. While no one questioned Curry's shot, there were still plenty of concerns as to whether he was physically strong enough, not to mention athletic enough, to thrive in the league. 

Curry's rookie year offered a taste of what was to come. He finished the season averaging 17.5 points and 5.9 assists per game, but his three-point shooting was the real eye-catcher. Though it would be bested by Damian Lillard just a few years later, Curry knocked down 166 threes in his rookie season — a number that topped his father's single-season high by two and was at the time the most for a rookie in league history.

Given all the hardware he has racked up thus far in his career, one might assume that Curry waltzed to a Rookie of the Year Award as well. Surprisingly enough, that is one honor he cannot lay claim to. Sacramento's Tyreke Evans won the award and actually had a very valid claim to it, as he outscored Curry on the season, 20.1 to 17.5 points per game. Evans has, to say the least, not had the same career arc as Curry since that first year.

Curry followed up his rookie season with another strong, if unspectacular, campaign. His second year saw him post the best free throw percentage in the league, as well as take home the NBA's Skills Contest title at the league's All-Star weekend. That said, the Warriors struggled during both his second and third years, and Curry was plagued by ankle injuries that required surgery at the end of the 2010-11 season. He played only 26 games of the 2011-12 campaign. 

The 2012-13 season represented Curry's true arrival as a force in the league. His scoring average jumped to 22.9 points per game, and he set an NBA record with 272 triples. The season was also notable because Curry and Klay Thompson began terrorizing the NBA from long range, dubbed the "Splash Brothers," and generally revolutionizing the way teams looked at offense. Suddenly, the three-pointer was very much in vogue, and no one was better at making them than Curry. 

Curry and the Warriors were solid and at times excellent under Mark Jackson's stewardship, but despite Curry and Thompson's prowess, the team was, to some degree, still stuck in the "old' way of doing things. That changed with the hiring of Steve Kerr as head coach. Kerr loosened the reins on Curry even more, and the Warriors fully opened up their attack. The league very quickly found out that a different animal altogether was being created in the Bay Area.

The 2015 playoffs would prove to be a coronation for the Warriors, but on the way to the franchise's first title in 40 years, Curry's two-year-old daughter Riley stole the show at the press conference following Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Curry's daughter interrupted his answers, laughing most of the time and carrying on exactly like any other two-year-old would. Her performance at the podium that day was the first of many star turns in front of the microphone.

Part of the reason that Kerr was brought in was to try and get the Warriors over the hump in the playoffs. In his first season, he did just that. Led by Curry, who took home league MVP honors (more on that shortly), Golden State rolled through the postseason, then met up with LeBron James and the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. King James and the Cavs couldn't deny Golden State, as Curry shook off a slow start to the series to pour in 37 points in a pivotal Game 5 and averaged 26 points per game for the six-game series.

Kerr's philosophies didn't just turn the Warriors into a force to be reckoned with — they turned Curry into a player unlike any the league had seen before. Curry's closest reasonable comparison seemed to be Pete Maravich, and like Pistol Pete, Curry was willing to shoot the ball anytime, from any place on the court, usually successfully. He also wowed crowds with slick, flashy passing and incredible circus finishes at the hoop. His reward for such brilliance? Back-to-back MVP Awards, the second one unanimous, which was a first in league history.

The Warriors were flying high after their first title, and the following season saw them blister the opposition right out of the gate, starting the year with 24 straight wins before finally falling to the Memphis Grizzlies. Golden State would go on to best the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls by posting a 73-9 regular-season record, but the joy from that achievement was rendered hollow in the playoffs, as the Warriors made it all the way to the NBA Finals before becoming the first team in Finals history to squander a 3-1 series lead. Curry in particular struggled in Game 7, scoring only 17 points on 6-of-19 shooting, as LeBron James and the Cavs exacted revenge on the Warriors.

With two MVP Awards and a championship to his credit, Curry entered the 2016-17 season as possibly the most influential force in the sport. His impact even trickled down to the youth level, where frustrated coaches tried to convince their teenage charges that pulling up and firing three-pointers from 27 feet was not a recipe for long-term success. Still, his way of playing, while often imitated, has still not been quite duplicated.

In one corner is LeBron James, the greatest player of his generation and possibly all time. In the other is Stephen Curry, a man whose stature as a player might fall just shy of LeBron's (no shame there) but who is fast-becoming nearly as popular and recognizable on an international level. Despite some less than stellar reviews on his signature shoes (which we'll chronicle shortly), Curry's importance to Under Armour is arguably greater than LeBron's to Nike. Curry's popularity with younger fans is also due in part to the fact that at a fit but slender 6-foot-3, he is seen as a much more attainable athletic ideal than LeBron's freak of nature physique. 

Golden State's loss to the Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals was disappointing, but the Warriors got the perfect revenge. Kevin Durant, a longtime nemesis from Oklahoma City, jumped ship and joined the Warriors — with Curry said to be instrumental to Durant's recruitment — to form what was termed a "super team" by experts and fans alike. Golden State cruised to a 67-15 record during the 2016-17 season and then routed the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, as Curry collected his second title. Even with Durant around, Curry took a back seat to no one, still pacing the team in scoring at 25.3 points per game.

Even the man thought by many observers to be the greatest shooter in league history chucks up a brick every now and then. Curry, an Under Armour pitchman, has not always had the best of luck when it comes to releasing signature shoes. One model was oxblood-colored and drew unfavorable comparisons to a leather couch, while another pair, the "Curry Two Low," simply became known as "Steph Curry's Dad Shoes."

Though the story has cooled a bit of late, Curry emerged as a very interested buyer when Jerry Richardson put the Carolina Panthers up for sale. The interest made sense, as most of Curry's roots are in Charlotte, and he is an avid Panthers fan. Though he said he was looking into his options as far as trying to purchase the team, he would have to join up with other investors, seeing as the franchise is expected to fetch at least $2 billion when it sells. 

Anyone who has tried his or her hand at golf knows how difficult it is, even for seasoned professionals. All things considered, Curry's foray into the world of pro golf was wildly successful. A near-scratch player, Curry received an exemption to play in the Ellie Mae Classic, a Web.com Tour event, in August 2017. He missed the cut, but his pair of 4-over 74s, which included a few birdies, was considered very impressive by most observers.

There isn't enough space to delve into the details here, but let's just say that Curry's mouthguard habits — he chews on them regularly and goes through several each season — have been the subject of plenty of research and analysis, especially as it pertains to their effect on his shooting percentages. The mouthguard was never more prominently on display than in Game 6 of the 2016 NBA Finals, when Curry flung the spit-covered protector after fouling out of the game. Unfortunately, he hit the son of a Cavs owner, who was seated courtside for the game.

Curry's career has been exceptionally successful on the court, and he has not been shy about giving back off of it. No cause has gotten more attention from Curry than the United Nations Foundation's "Nothing But Nets" campaign, which combats malaria. In 2012, Curry started donating three treated mosquito nets for every made three-pointer, having been alerted to the cause by Bryant Barr, one of his teammates from Davidson. In 2015, Curry even spoke as part of President Barack Obama's launch campaign for the President's Malaria Initiative.

Is Curry the best shooter of all time? Many of the greatest shooters in league history think so, though not all are swayed by his case. Curry does have the distinction of being one of the few players in league history with a 50-40-90 season (field-goal percentage, three-point percentage, free throw percentage) to his credit. Curry, as a matter of fact, did it in back-to-back seasons and is on pace to do so again.

Despite some ankle problems cropping back up this season, Curry is still having an excellent year, averaging nearly 30 points per game for a Warriors team that is the odds-on favorite to win another NBA title. If he stays healthy, the sky seems like the limit — with the 15,000-point mark next on his list of individual accomplishments to check off. The Hall of Fame is a lock at this point, and if the Warriors can keep churning out championships, Curry will have to be looked at as the centerpiece of one of the great dynasties in league history.