The rookie wall?

Don Nelson on Stephen: He “is one of the guys who has gotten better every game, and he’s playing at the best level he has all year.” Last night: a comeback win against the Kings. Next up: his buddy Bron.

Advice from LeBron

Stephen: “He’s been checking on me, there’s been a little chaos on our team, and he’s been making sure I’ve kept my head straight. He has been a voice of encouragement.” ABJ. Last night in Cleveland.

Stephen and Chris

The Times-Pic:

With enormous expectations to start this upcoming season as a rookie with the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry sought out Paul for help this summer. They worked out together this past week at the Alario Center.

Curry, the son of former Charlotte Hornets guard Dell Curry, led the nation in scoring with a 28.6 average at Davidson last season. He was the seventh overall pick in June’s draft by the Warriors.

“To come in and learn from an All-Star and Olympic gold-medal winner is pretty special,” Curry said. “You see how hard he works, and I picked up things and competed with him one-on-one. I just feel like it’s a head start for me to start my career off right.”

Curry likely will play point guard, although he played shooting guard for two seasons at Davidson.

“I’ve known Stephen for awhile,” Paul said. “He grew up in Charlotte, and I was down in Winston-Salem. We’ve been working out all summer, and I think he’s as prepared for his rookie season as he can be.”

It’s worth noting that the kid from Clemmons is best buds with LeBron.

‘When I grow up …’

Deadspin: Before he became BFF with LeBron James, before he was ignored by college coaches, before he even entered kindergarten, Curry’s exuberant presence merited the watchful gaze of Don Nelson at the 1992 NBA All-Star Game. Also: Yahoo! Sports' Ball Don't Lie. NBA.com's John Schuhmann on Twitter. NBC Bay Area.

Some (LeBron) speculating

Adam Zagoria:

If the Knicks pick Stephen Curry in the upcoming NBA, his sweet shooting touch could certainly help the team.

But it’s Curry’s new buddy who could radically transform the Knicks’ fortunes.

You may have heard of him. He has a puppet named after him and he goes by the name of LeBron.

“I got him on the text message contact list, so I’ll be dropping lines if I’m here trying to get him to come here next year,” Curry said of James after his workout Wednesday at the Knicks’ practice facility.

Knicks, Knicks, Knicks

Stephen in Newsday: “I was thinking that. I read the blogs and stuff and saw one that said the Knicks will pick Curry to get LeBron, or something like that. That was kind of funny. They think too much of that stuff. But I got a good laugh out of it.”

LeBron factor?

Frank Isola:

It’s also worth noting that last year LeBron attended one of Curry’s games and the two have struck up a friendship. Would drafting Curry assure the Knicks of getting LeBron? No. But it can’t hurt.

Windy City talk

From a Chicago Tribune Q&A:

I recently read an article comparing Stephen Curry to Steve Kerr, and although he is a PG, sharp shooters always make great bench players. Yes, I miss Pax, Kerr, and even Hoiberg. Curry is projected to go in the teens (as of right now). Do you think he’d be a decent pickup if available? Also, I know it’s seemingly ridiculous, but Lebron is supposedly a huge Curry fan. If we clear up the money for 2010 free agency, is a run at Lebron obligatory? -- Michael, Highland Park

I’m not sure which part made me laugh louder: That somebody misses Hoiberg or LeBron might change teams to play with Stephen Curry. At least you couched it as being seemingly ridiculous. -- K.C. Johnson

LeBron last night

On Stephen and his decision: “If he needs the advice, he can call me. He’s got my number.”

One-man team?

The Duke Basketball Report on LeBron’s take on Stephen and Davidson:

Yes, Davidson is not “the best.” But they didn’t get good just when Stephen Curry showed up, and they’re not going to disappear when he leaves, either. We’ve been big fans for a while now, and the reason they are good, and the reason why they were perceptive enough to go after Curry when some others didn’t, is simple: Bob McKillop is an unbelievable coach.

We noticed it not long after he arrived and Davidson went from being a joke to a team that would hang around. Instead of losing by 30, the games were maybe 10 points. After last year’s game, when Duke barely won, Davidson wasn’t a secret anymore, but really, it was nothing new. They’d given lots of teams fits -- UNC, Kansas, UCLA, Stanford.

Curry is a freak, and they’ll miss him, but the program is really well constructed and should continue to succeed after he leaves. It’s not a one-man deal. Or if it is, rather, the man is McKillop.

The day after

A few thoughts:

*** Ben Allison had seven points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal in 17 very, VERY impressive minutes. Four of those rebounds were on the offensive end. Some of them were of the I-don’t-care-that’s-MY-ball variety. No way to know for sure what happens from here, of course, and it was somewhat lost in all the Curry-for-44 fervor, but my initial impulse is to call those 17 minutes THE most important development out of yesterday’s game.

*** Seemed, watching the game, like Andrew wasn’t having anywhere close to his best outing, and he didn’t. But the stat sheet was sort of surprising: 12 points on 6-for-13 shooting, nine rebounds, including SEVEN offensive rebounds, and two blocks in 38 minutes. I’ll take that.

*** Rossiter? Ten rebounds, one of them, of course, near the end of the game, off that airball, being hugely important.

It led to what is seriously one of Davidson’s bread-and-butter plays at this point.

Missed shot.

Offensive glass.

FIND 30!

*** Scott Fowler asked in the presser how deep that last three from Stephen might have been.

McKillop thought.

He paused.

Grinned.

“Thirty-seven?” he said.

Stephen?

“I didn’t see,” he said almost apologetically. “I just saw the rim.”

*** I asked Stephen in the hallway outside the locker room how LeBron was entered in his phone. In other words, when a text message arrives on his phone from, you know, the best basketball player on Planet Earth, what’s it look like on his screen?

LeBron?

James?

The King?

Everybody’s in his phone with a full name, he explained, so …

Good luck.

From: LeBron James.

*** Add this to the always fun, always growing list labeled How Things Have Changed: There was Sidney Lowe, coach of the N.C. State Wolfpack of the Atlantic Coast Conference, after a loss to Davidson College, 1,700-student Davidson College, Davidson College of the Southern Conference, telling the assembled press, and with a quite straight face, that this LOSS was “something we can hang our hats on.”

*** Also, this: There are tickets for sale for Davidson’s game against Duke next month in Durham -- right now, as I write this -- selling on StubHub.com for $1,200.

*** Bottom line: That was a game, against an ACC team, that Davidson could have lost, and certainly did enough things to lose -- but won.

‘Made for TV’

Couldn’t help but notice tonight on the screens at the Brickhouse the hype starting up for Tuesday on ESPN in NYC. Certainly doesn’t hurt that Stephen will hit the city coming off another show in front of LeBron. Made me think of something executive VP of programming for CBS Sports Mike Aresco told me last summer in my reporting for the book: “The Davidson story was the best story of the entire tournament. They had beaten the Big East champs. They beat the Big 10 champions decisively. You kind of think of them as an Amherst or a Williams with a chance to win the national championship. That’s a premier time slot, that regional final going into 60 Minutes, but the Davidson story was unique and Stephen Curry was a genuine star. What he did in the Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin games, he was the single most visible player in the entire tournament, and maybe for the last several years. And TV thrives on star power. George Mason became a nice story in ’06 but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t a little school. They didn’t have a star. But everything about the Davidson story was made for TV viewership. You dream about Davidson-type scenarios.”

Saturday in Charlotte

Stephen had 44. Again. LeBron was there. Again. But Ben Allison had never EVER done THAT.

The future

Wrapped my work week in time to break up the drive to Charlotte with a pit stop at JP Kuhlman’s 7:30 tip in Jacksonville.

I used to do this stuff for full-time work, believe it or not, so it wasn’t a totally unfamiliar feeling walking into the small, crowded Providence School gym and finding a spot to sit with my legs dangling off a stage behind one of the baskets.

Felt like going to watch, say, Raymond Felton in little Latta, S.C., or Gerry McNamara in Scranton, Pa., or Kevin Bookout in wherever that was in Oklahoma … or one Brendan Winters at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts.

Now, before I say anything about the Davidson-bound guard from North Florida, I have to say this: Back when I did this for a living, I always, or at least with very few exceptions, considered a first watch just that and only that.

I mean, LeBron James was an NBA All-Star waiting to happen when he was 16 years old, and one watch was more than enough to know that, but LeBron was, and is, as everybody knows by now, a freak.

But most of the time?

I want to see a kid once just to see how he moves.

Then can I start to get a feel for what he can and can’t do, what makes him go, etc., on a second watch, or a third, or a fourth, and so on. That’s when context and perspective starts to happen.

All that said, then, some quick thoughts after my first watch of the future Wildcat:

Tough to gauge. Kind of impossible to make any sort of meaningful evaluation. He played about half of the game because the final was 87-35 and could’ve been a lot worse.

He made a couple threes early and missed a few later. Airballed one of them. His face didn’t change.

Missed a few runners in the lane and an elbow stop-and-pop off the dribble.

Probably finished with 12 or 14 or something like that.

He threw consistently crisp, smart passes.

He looked like a responsible rebounder on the defensive end.

No headband, no wristbands, white mid-calf tube socks. Just playing the game.

He was on the bench near the end of the second quarter when the score was 55-22 and he stood and he clapped and he gave his teammates high fives when they came out of the game.

Again, though, the competition was truly atrocious. For a while in the first quarter, I thought University Christian might not score -- like, not at all. The team’s coach was a young balding man wearing sweatpants.

Anyway, the game ended, I said hello to JP and wished him luck and merged back onto 95 North.

Onward.