Mike Yorkey - The Right Steph: How Stephen Curry Is Making All the Right Moves—with Humility and Grace

2016 by Mike Yorkey

Print ISBN 978-1-68322-109-8

eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-68322-261-3
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Cover image: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

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Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P. O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com

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At the start of the 201011 NBA season, I (Mike Yorkey) received an assignment to write a book about Christian players in the league as part of the Playing with Purpose series.

After doing my research and working my sources, I realized that the pool wasnt very deep. In fact, I was hard-pressed to come up with a dozen National Basketball Association players who were serious about their faith and walking the talk. Since at any one time there are between 360 and 450 active players in the NBA (the 30 teams can carry as few as 12 and as many as 15 players), that meant a dozen committed Christians comprised a tiny fractionaround 3 percentof those playing in the league.

My total didnt include a number of Christian players who, upon closer review, had succumbed to the many temptations that bounce into the laps of NBA athletes during a long season that runs from October until possibly Juneand throughout the off-season as well. I believed they were men of faith, but they had a weakness for women and had fathered children out of wedlock. We all make mistakes, but I wanted to set the bar high, especially because my Playing with Purpose books reach a lot of impressionable young readers interested in learning more about their sports heroes.

In the midst of my research, however, I kept hearing good things about two players. They were teammates on the Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry and Jeremy Lin.

In October 2010, Stephen was beginning his second year in the NBA after a successful rookie season in the Warriors backcourt. Jeremy, meanwhile, surprised the basketball world by taking the final roster spot as an undrafted free agent out of Harvard University, not exactly a hotbed of basketball talent.

Jeremy was getting tons of publicitytrending in the social media worldbecause he was the first Asian-American to step onto an NBA court. (A Japanese-American player, Wataru Misaka, played just three games for the New York Knicks back in 1947 when the Knicks were part of the Basketball Association of America, or BAA.) Jeremys crashing of the so-called bamboo ceiling in a sport dominated by black and white players was a feel-good story that Warriors fans rallied around. I read how Oracle Arena, the Warriors home court in Oakland, California, was populated with thousands of Asian-Americans eager to cheer on their trailblazing rookie. As the last man on the bench, however, Jeremy got most of his minutes during garbage timethe final few moments of lopsided wins or losses when starters like Stephen Curry came out and the game got sloppy and undisciplined.

At the time, during the 201011 season, Jeremy had a more interesting backstory than Stephen, so when I wrote Playing with Purpose: Inside the Lives and Faith of Top NBA Stars, I devoted a major chapter to Jeremys pixie-dust journey from Palo Alto High in Silicon Valley to the highest echelon of professional basketball.

But I also appreciated Stephen Currys long Christian testimony, one that began in fourth grade when he responded to an altar call at Central Church of God in Charlotte, North Carolina. That, and his sharpshooting skill from the perimeter as starting point guard for the Warriors, of course. I only devoted four pages to Stephens story, but I included an anecdote of how, during his college days at Davidson, Stephen took a Sharpie pen and wrote Romans 8:28 on his sneakers.

What a different life journey each player has taken in the last half-dozen years! Ill get to Stephen, but let me start with Jeremy. During the 201011 season, this Asian-American ballplayer was

demoted to D League by the Warriors

put on waivers before the start of the strike-shortened 201112 season

picked up by the Houston Rockets

released on Christmas Eve and out of the NBA

On the day after Christmas, Jeremy woke up at his parents home, studied his Bible, and then drove to a nearby gym to stay in shape in case another NBA team wanted him. During his shootaround, he whispered to himself Romans 8:28the same verse Stephen highlighted on his sneakers:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Little did Jeremy know what God had waiting for him. The New York Knicks picked him up, and in February 2012, Jeremy came off the bench to ignite a seven-game explosion that became known as Linsanity. Overnight, Jeremy Lin became as famous as any NBA star, including LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. The Chinese media swooped in and turned Jeremy into a household name among the 1.3 billion inhabitants of the worlds most populous country.

Meanwhile, back in the Bay Area, Jeremys old teammate, Stephen Curry, was nearly forgotten, playing on lousy teams that averaged 28 wins a season his first three years in the NBA. Even more worrisome were the constant ankle injuries that threatened to cripple his career. Each time Stephen limped to the bench after turning an anklealways his rightthere were whispers that his body couldnt hold up to the demands of a brutal NBA schedule.