The Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry was honored with a prestigious title on social media.
Recently, Stephen Curry was named the better player than Tim Duncan in ESPN’s Top 100 Athletes of the 21st Century list. While it’s debatable who is better between the two NBA dynasty leaders, it’s undebatable that Curry influenced the game on a larger scale than Duncan. With that said, an X (formerly known as Twitter) user made a “most influential basketball player,” Mt. Rushmore.
Kobe Bryant, Curry, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan made the cut, or chisel in this case. Curry is one of the better players of all time, and his championship hardware and his NBA history’s only unanimous MVP award strengthen his case. However, aside from the individual and team accolades, it’s the off-court effect that hammers home why Curry belongs in such a prestigious company.
Without Curry, kids wouldn’t likely wear Under Armour, a brand typically associated with training and football; it now has a basketball player as the face of the company and generally is a fashion catered to an older demographic. Furthermore, the AAU system, and at a slightly lower level, your local gym is riddled with players who assume they can launch from a range with results similar to Curry’s.
“Like Mike” is something we once uttered decades ago, but now the Golden State Warriors superstar is the goal. Jordan’s high-flying dunks aren’t as obtainable as shooting the three-ball from deep, and Curry’s “smaller” build encourages kids and gym rats to the power of belief they, too, can reach such heights.
The landscape of what we expect from guards coming into the draft significantly changes without Curry’s elite three-point shooting.