Steph As Comedian

 

With Steph Curry sidelined due to a hamstring injury, the Golden State Warriors bombed out of the NBA playoffs the other day. Curry being 37 years old, his chances to grab another brass ring may have run out. Patrick Redford took this occasion to publish a lovely piece at Defector about Steph.

Redford points us to a highlight video of Steph dissecting the Houston Rockets in the Warriors’ first-round series. In his signature fashion, Curry mixes impossibly long 3-point jumpers with tantalizing floaters that are enabled by the threat of the long 3’s.

That is rude, ingenious, and above all funny. An important thing about Steph Curry: He is foremost a comedian. His possessions have the structure of a joke, with setups, misdirections, and punchlines. 

This is the beautiful observation I want to bookmark: Steph-as-comedian.

I can add, for anyone who needs reminding, that Steph entered the NBA from Davidson College. Come to think of it, Steph playing his college ball at Davidson is a comical twist in his story. Davidson was not his Plan A, to say the least. It was an absurd collective blunder by all the major college hoops powers to allow Steph to wind up in the Southern Conference hinterlands. Somehow Plan B worked.

It is difficult to describe how Davidson people feel at having Steph Curry come into our lives and being entitled to root for him. We never dreamed our school would produce a world-famous sports star. And then to have him be such a fine person and loyal advocate for the school—it’s too much. We love Steph, and, amazingly, he loves us back, for giving him a longshot chance. Davidson’s love for Steph has the quality of unbidden laughter, of being surprised by joy.

Redford goes on:

As he explained in Court of Gold, Netflix's Olympic basketball documentary, the sense of freedom [Curry] plays with is only possible because he's made his peace with losing. He seems like someone who loves winning more than he hates losing, the opposite of how Michael Jordan and his sour peers ordered things and probably different from how his eternal foil, LeBron James, relates to losing.

Last year I wrote about Jerry West that he was more characterized by the hatred of losing than the love of winning. His playing career resembled a grim crusade, piling wounds upon indignities in pursuit of validation. West finally earned that moment of glory and seeming redemption, but did it truly redeem all the sour years?

Steph is different. He’s been doubted so many times during his career as being too small, too injury-prone, not a true point guard, and more. People seem to have forgotten that he was The Underdog for so long, and the essence of being The Underdog is that the possibility if not likelihood of losing is ever-present. Steph Curry is sublimely conscious of the unlikeliness of his own story--even now, when so many others have forgotten it and treat the Warriors like a presumptive Finals contender. Unburdened by outside expectations (although they are there), Steph is free to accept joy when and where he finds it. It’s all gravy.

 Photo by Keith Allison via Flicker and Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA 4.0