Marcus Thompson - Golden

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Touchstone

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Copyright 2017 by Marcus Thompson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Touchstone hardcover edition April 2017

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Jacket design by Jonathan Bush

Jacket photograph Mark J. Rebilas-Usa Today Sports

Back jacket photograph Kelvin Kuo-Usa Today Sports

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Thompson, Marcus, II, 1977 author. Title: Golden : the miraculous rise of Steph Curry / by Marcus Thompson II. Description: New York : Touchstone, 2017. Identifiers: LCCN 2016052824| ISBN 9781501147838 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501147845 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Curry, Stephen, 1988 | Basketball playersUnited StatesBiography. Classification: LCC GV884.C88.T46 2017 | DDC 796.323092 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052824

ISBN 978-1-5011-4783-8

ISBN 978-1-5011-4785-2 (ebook)

To my wife, my greatest tangible proof that God loves me and wants the best for me. I am perennially at a loss for the words to express what you mean to me.

Thank you, Dawn.

Daddy,

You are still, and forever, my favorite reader. I wrote this missing you and your big nose.

T he Bay Area is a vibrant basketball town, maybe even underrated. Oaklands had a long history with hoop, producing Hall of Famers like Bill Russell, Jason Kidd, and Gary Payton, and other noteworthy NBA names like Paul Silas, Antonio Davis, Brian Shaw, J.R. Rider, and now Damian Lillard. This areas relationship with basketball is why the NBA is beloved in these parts. Even when the Warriors were bad, they still drew well, much better than several good teams draw now. Especially since the early 2000s, the Warriors have had a steady base of hardcore fans who have lived and died with the franchise. Mostly died.

Worse than being bad, worse than being onto something and blowing it on the biggest stage, the Warriors were irrelevant. Fans suffered in obscurity. Being tucked way out West in an East Coastdominated sports media, California teams not named the Lakers have to do something spectacular to draw national attention. For the Warriors, that was usually something like Latrell Sprewell choking the coach. Or trading Chris Webber.

Unlike with the Chicago Cubs, who played day games on a nationally syndicated channel, few outside the Bay Area got to watch the Warriors enough to develop an affinity through sympathy and childhood memories. The Warriors franchise, and its fans, was terrible and invisible. Every longtime Warriors fan has a story of coming across a non-Californian who didnt even know the city in which the Golden State Warriors played. No one cared enough to attach a curse to their decades-long plight, turn it into history worth following.

The Warriors always felt so far from a championship that was never even the goal. Fans just wanted them to go to the playoffs and put a scare into a really good team. Get some respect. Though lofty, relevance was more realistic than a ring. It would have been parade worthy if the Warriors made it to the level of the Sonics or the Blazers or the Jazzgood enough to lose to the Michael Jordanled Chicago Bulls in the Finals.

Stephen Curry changed all that.

Before James delivered Clevelands first championship in fifty-four years, before the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in more than a hundred years, Golden State was the doomed franchise to break its title drought. It wasnt the national love story it was for those other teams, or for the Boston Red Sox when they finally broke through. Part of that was because the Bay Area had produced several champions in the meantime: the As, the 49ers, and the San Francisco Giants. Its hard to throw some of that sympathy out this way.

And now, after just two magical years, the newness and freshness of the Warriors has already rubbed off in the national picture. There is already such a thing as Warriors fatigue. In a span of a few years, the Warriors went from a cute start-up, the trendy watch for those in the know, to champion, to despised favorite whose fall is celebrated. Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, peoples heads are still spinning. Many fans are just getting settled in their championship skin, and already their beloved Warriors are national villains.

Nobody knew it at the time, but this all began on June 25, 2009. The future of the Warriors changed with the No. 7 pick. They got the cornerstone in the rebuilding of the franchise, the piece that would make them a power. It took three years to even see the possibility of the Warriors being a contender. Another two to build on it. And before it could be expected, they were blowing through the NBA like a sports car on an empty highway. And Curry was the epicenter. He delivered everything for which Warriors fans had been pining.

He was a talent special enough to draw in respect from outside the Bay Area. Relevance from a national perspective had always been on the wish list of Warriors fans, and of most fans whose team is not in the regular SportsCenter rotation. Currys highlights and feats made the sports shows, and forced experts and analysts to talk about the Warriors positively. Such was an acceptable consolation prize for a franchise so far from a championship.

Curry was good enough to compete with other credible stars. He was somebody they had to worry about, somebody who could land a couple of haymakers. The Warriors stars rarely stacked up with the games elite. That is why they went sixteen years without an all-star. Their players were good enough to become fan favorites to desperate followers. But usually once they faced the leagues best, they were exposed as in over their head. Those that were good enough to challenge the leagues best didnt stay with the Warriors long. But Curry had even the elite worried. He was giving the business to the best teams, going blow for blow with the best players.