Worthwhile reads

Mike Giglio ‘06 on the Cult of Curry:

Each morning over breakfast or inside cubicles, people boot up their computers and religiously check his box scores. In driveways late at night, they sit in cars to listen to his games live via satellite radio. Many who have never paid the NBA any mind at all fork over for expensive TV packages just to watch him. And they flock to away games to cheer for him, and him alone.

Simmons: I just thought Curry had a higher degree of difficulty: crazy coaching situation, crazy ownership/front-office situation, super-crazy roster. He played with Ellis and Corey Maggette (two of the ultimate me-first guys), and a rotating cast of promoted D-Leaguers and bench guys. He didn’t have a decent low-post player or rebounder; you knew things were bad when someone said the words, “We really miss Ronny Turiaf right now.” And yet, he got better every month and became the first rookie ever to average 17 points and two 3s per game and top 85 percent free throw shooting and 40 percent 3-point shooting (nobody even came close before). FanHouse: Curry was just a freshman, and was still annoyingly known as Dell's son. “Hold on to that,” he told me, to which I scoffed. “Seriously, it’ll be worth a lot someday.”

Team USA invite

For Stephen.

42, 9 and 8: a parting shot

Don Nelson: “If Stephen Curry isn’t the rookie of the year, there’s something wrong.” Mercury News: The last rookie with such a line was Oscar Robertson.

‘My momma won’t let me’

Marcus on Stephen:

But quietly, Curry experiences a tiny bit of reservation. The love he receives, the hype that follows him, comes with a price.

Curry doesn’t want to inconvenience his loved ones. He doesn’t want to upstage his teammates. He doesn’t want to come off as a glutton for glory.

“He doesn’t take anything for granted, and he doesn’t think he’s entitled to anything,” said Steve Rossiter, one of Curry’s closest teammates at Davidson. “That’s not who he is.”

Curry said his parents, his high school coach, his girlfriend -- whom he first met six years ago in their church youth group -- and a couple Davidson teammates serve as his escape. They allow him a welcome relief from life on the pedestal.

Curry said he’s confident he won’t fall off, nor does he want off his high place. In his mind, it’s his calling to be humble while exalted.

“It’s possible to keep that forever,” Curry said of his pristine image. “It can’t be just for show. It’s got to be who you are. I’ve thought about this. I think it’s just who I am, who I was made to be.”

Northside San Francisco

Michael Murphy with a cover story:

On the evening of the first game of his professional career in the NBA as a Golden State Warrior, Stephen Curry’s 10-minute drive from his Lake Merritt apartment to the Oakland Coliseum was delayed by a traffic jam. It would be one of the few times all season the rookie would be stressed.

Read to the end where Murphy talks to John Kuykendall. Oh wait. No he didn’t. He just stole it from Staying Stephen.

Rookie of the Year?

Marcus Thompson tonight on Twitter: More ROY fodder @DIMEMag @StephenCurry30 just broke the record for most made treys in a season for an NBA rookie (159). Kawakami: Here’s how. Bleacher Report after the other night in Minnesota: Curry fell two rebounds and three steals short of accomplishing a very rare quadruple-double. Wizards coach Flip Saunders: “He’s going to be a very good player in this league for a long time.”

Stephen’s mini movie

Accolades in Utah

Warriors assistant Scott Roth: “He’s definitely a franchise-type of guy. He’s someone who will attract other players to come just by the way he is. He’s got the right approach to the game. He’s kind of a throw-back player, in that respect.” Tonight in Toronto: 29, 12 and 8, and a win.

Did they make this for us?

Last night against the Mavs

Marcus Thompson: Stephen Curry may have had worse lines as a pro, but this was his worst performance. He was incredibly careless with the ball when the team still had a chance to make the game competitive. This ugliness went beyond the well-intentioned but forced passes that account for many of his turnovers. Along with those, he made some plain lazy passes on the perimeter that were swiped and clearly telegraphed a few others. I don’t know whether he has hit the wall or is losing focus with all the losing, but hopefully this is a one-off bad night and not a sign of things to come.

An interview with Stephen

On WarriorsWorld.net: ... when I went back to Charlotte for the first time to play, that kind of put it all into perspective, of how much I miss being at home and miss being a college student, but I’m definitely happy with that situation and I wouldn’t change it if I had the opportunity to.

Stephen on Rome

The Warriors are for sale

Says Stephen: “There’s going to be a lot of speculation, a lot of talk, but for the most part, until a decision is made we’re just going to go about our business. I don’t know what to be worried about yet.”

Last night in Memphis

The Grizzlies coach: “I saw Curry sucking air a little bit. I know he was tired as well as the rest of the team.” Struggling. Bryant was in town for the game. On Twitter: Definitely worth the drive to see the old roomie.

‘This hook that he’s become’

Claire on why we watch:

This room -- okay, this cavern -- is brimming with people that I love. They gave my Davidson meaning, they’ve shared good days and bad days, unbelievable games and shitty games. So many together, uncommonly wonderfully so. The ’08 boys, Joe Pierce Nathan JB Chris, haven’t seen them all at once since their graduation, haven’t watched a game with them since 3/30/08, and tons before that. Pete, who, when I saw him, all I could think of was sitting in the Dearborn Doubletree cackling gleefully over countless newspaper articles. Morgan, Logan, Calucchia, dear faces a couple rows up, waving towels that the Currys gave out: TCC #30. Rachel, Grace, Laura, Sue. The Dails, connecting me to Davidson and Richmond, two families of mine. My professors. The Davidson athletics department. Wildcats. Michael and I had lunch when I got back this afternoon, and now I spot him right behind my section (and introduce him to Morgan -- WL -- at halftime, which is fun), I wave to David, Kate, and the Bakers in the upper bowl, I text Rob and Jessie over and over, I find Grace at the half. Michael Jordan has nothing on this family of mine, and our scattered cheers spill over into shared -- remembrance? sacredness? support? thanksgiving?

"Daaaaaav-iddddd-son!"

It drifts down from the nosebleeds, makes me laugh, another moment in another chapter in a good long story. Part of me wants to start it louder, hit the rafters, wants it to echo all through and knock the big million dollar franchises off their feet. But another part of me is content with keeping it soft, one voice speaking volumes. We know it. This is where we come from.

Read the whole thing. Claire references my question, that night at the Brickhouse, and of course kind of always: Why do we watch? And more than that: Why do we watch him, especially now, when he’s not wearing the name of our school on his chest anymore. He was a face of us. For many outsiders -- which is to say most people -- he was the face of us. For them, those outsiders, those most people, that hasn’t changed, and maybe it never will. Stephen Curry. Davidson. And I guess that’s fine. I mean I went to the game in Orlando earlier in the week before the game in Charlotte. Why did I go? Well I went to see him and talk to him because I figured I might have something to say to the people who might be interested in that. But also I was curious. I hadn’t seen him, or seen him play, live, with my own eyes, without a screen in between, for months and months. Why did I go that Saturday in Charlotte? Well I was in town and a lot of people were going. But I had the thought in my head in Orlando: What am I doing here? That thought was much, much louder in Charlotte: What am I doing here? Same thing when I heard that hundreds of alums in Atlanta came out the night before when he was down there: What had they gone to see, and why, and did they get it? Saturday, to me, for whatever it’s worth, probably nothing -- it felt a little uncomfortable. It felt a little ... disconnected. The space between us and him due to no fault of his own but the machinery that moves around the people who do what he now does where he now does it. It felt a little ... hero-worshippery. Clearly I overthink things, sometimes, this being a great case in point. I grant that. Claire’s answer, that night in Davidson, and in what she’s written about it here, is helpful and I think accurate: We’re there to see him, fine, I suppose, but more than that we’re there to see all the other people who are there to do the same.

And then there’s this

I watched the first half of last night’s game on ESPN while pretending to work out at the gym, but then I left, because I’m old, and then I was busy today with work, so I didn’t check what happened until tonight when I plugged Stephen into Google News.

Which popped up the following headline from The Big Lead: Kobe Survives the Stephen Curry Show.

Which linked to Marcus Thompson’s story, which started with these two sentences:

Warriors guard Stephen Curry had a question for Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.

With Lakers guard Shannon Brown at the line, Curry asked Bryant if he was worried.

Curry. Asked Bryant. If he was worried. During a game, by the way, against the defending NBA champs, in which he had 29 points and nine assists and not one turnover. Just when I feel my interest sort of start to wane ... Rookie of the Year. Cornerstone.

Stuff on Stephen

Don Nelson to USA Today: “Everything I dreamed of what he’d be in three years, he’s doing now. The toughest position in the league is a rookie point guard.” Stephen’s bracket tips (with a Rossiter name-drop). Last night against the Lakers: 29 points, nine assists, zero turnovers.

Says Doug Collins

The TNT analyst on Stephen: “This kid is a scoring machine. He absolutely has such a great feel to shoot the ball, he’s a very good ballhandler and an excellent passer.”

Vince on Stephen

An apology: I had this dude all wrong. Last June: here and here.

The Currys, the community and TCC

Reed Jackson on Cats.com:

About 20 minutes prior to the start, mama Curry arrived with garbage bags, scanned our section, and despite having only met a couple times, waived both mom and boys up. At which point she delivered a big hug to my surprised wife, and gave the boys two of the 30 Curry TCC towels. It was a moment that I think said a lot about moms and their common journey with their boys. Both what they hope for them, and what they hope they aspire to be as young men.

The TCC towels.