Steph Curry received one other trophy in Cleveland.
Ho-hum.
However he did one thing even greater Sunday night time on the banks of Lake Erie.
He made the NBA All-Star Sport must-see TV.
On a court docket with the perfect basketball gamers on the planet, it was the little man who made the exhibition sport enjoyable, watchable, memorable.
The sport won't have meant something, and protection was non-existent, however Curry made 16 three-point pictures — 16! — en path to 50 factors. It was probably the most three-pointers in All-Star Sport historical past — earlier document, 9 — and the second-most factors. Anthony Davis scored 52 within the 2017 All-Star Sport.
It was a spellbinding efficiency. It was the proper encapsulation of what makes the game of basketball enjoyable.
We’ve been blessed right here within the Bay to see Curry play with pleasure on a near-nightly foundation for greater than a decade now. Bless him for bringing it to an occasion that really wanted the enhance.
Between the NBA honoring its prime 75 gamers of all-time — together with Curry — for its diamond anniversary and the sport itself, Sunday was an impressive present, led by the league’s final showman.
It’s no coincidence that Curry used the phrase “present” repeatedly and once more in his numerous postgame press conversations.
Curry desires to entertain whether or not it’s a meaningless regular-season sport or Sunday’s showcase.
And he is aware of what the followers need.
There’s no debate anymore — the 3-pointer has overtaken the dunk as basketball’s favourite shot.
Blame Curry.
Earlier than him, such an idea would have been laughable.
However dunk after dunk after dunk occurred Sunday and it by no means actually registered with the group.
Curry, alternatively, had the group enraptured. By the point he was handed the MVP award — his first in eight All-Star Video games — the boos that had greeted him in Cleveland had turned to cheers.
It’s one factor to win over an detached crowd. It’s an entire different form of present to win over an aggressively and negatively partisan crowd.
However what else are you able to do when the smallest man on the court docket (more often than not) is capturing from almost 40 toes and turning round effectively earlier than the ball rips by means of the online?
The three-point shot has been within the NBA since 1979, however Curry discovered a brand new solution to dominate.
Sunday night time, these 16 3-pointers averaged simply shy of 30 toes per shot. In all, Curry made 475 toes price of pictures.
The longest house run in baseball — keep in mind that sport? — final season went 466 toes.
“Steph… this man is from a distinct planet,” LeBron James, probably the most spectacular athlete to ever grace a basketball court docket and the star of the brand new ‘House Jam,’ mentioned after the sport. “To be on the market and watch that child from Akron, as effectively, shoot the ball the best way he shot it was unbelievable. It was fairly cool.”
To not convey a untimely finish to the All-Star break, however I couldn’t assist questioning if Curry will discover himself out of his capturing droop as soon as the Warriors resume their season Thursday in Portland.
Curry had made 15 3-pointers — mixed — within the Warriors’ final 4 video games earlier than the break. And that included an 8-of-13 efficiency towards the Clippers.
It might be one other welcome change for a crew that wants a bit extra of that pleasure, that one-of-a-kind swagger that Curry gives.
Both means, amid all of his nice accomplishments — amid a gradual stream of greatness over the past decade — Curry discovered yet one more solution to astound. In a constructing that hosted so a lot of these nice moments, he was in a position to create one other indelible reminiscence out of a second that might have been altogether forgettable.
He’s one in every of one, this Steph Curry.
And I can’t wait to see what sort of reveals he’s set to placed on for us within the weeks to return.