We've SWEPT the 3-1 jokes away, NOW WE SMELL LIKE CHAMPAGNE AGAIN(OFFICIAL WARRIORS 18-19 THREAD)
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Kiyoshi-Dono
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Hi Momma Curry
Kiyoshi-Dono
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dayun
Superstar
Hi Momma Curry
Klay might go down as my all time favourite warrior
G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman
Logic Is Absent Wherever Hate Is Present
Man of the people
CHARLOTTE — This was May 2013, years before the Warriors signed Steph Curry to his current $201 million mega contract. The endorsement money, which now more than doubles his yearly salary, was just a tiny droplet compared to the flood of revenue it’s become. His fourth season, he made $3.9 million. It had just ended.
So Curry was rich, but his net worth wasn’t yet similar to Drake’s. He was famous, but his social media following wasn’t yet in the Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith stratosphere.
“Back when I was taking commercial flights,” Curry said, laughing lightly at how casual that sentence has become. “I never flew private.”
The Warriors had just made the playoffs for the first time in his career. That elevated Curry onto a larger stage. He shined in their first-round upset of the Nuggets and second-round loss to the Spurs, playing that smooth, skilled, bombs-away style that appeals to so many.
But his offseason was here, which typically meant the spotlight dimmed. So he, his wife Ayesha and their infant daughter, Riley, were off to the airport for a flight back to his hometown of Charlotte.
They got in the security line. A few people recognized them. Not completely abnormal. They got up to the first TSA agent. Recognized again. Whatever. Maybe the ID check tipped him off.
But it was relentless. They were recognized while going through every leg of the security check, ogled at while scooping up their bags, stopped several times on the way to the gate and so on. As new parents, this was one of their first times traveling with a baby. That is challenging enough. But now they were walking through a red carpet of obstructions at the wrong time.
“One of the worst experiences of my life,” Curry said. “Getting bothered left and right from the time we showed up at the airport to the time we got to the house in Charlotte. That was probably when it was like, OK, this is crazy. And, yeah, it’s got even crazier from there.”
Curry has come back again to his hometown this weekend, this time after chartering a private jet from Portland. He’s here for the NBA’s All-Star festivities, when he’s expected to be the lead focus of the league’s marketing effort.
“The unofficial host,” Steve Kerr called him.
So much will be asked of Curry, so much attention awaits, so many eyes beaming his direction, so many hands out. But that’s no longer unique. It’s his everyday reality.
“He’s an A-list celebrity,” Shaun Livingston said. “A-plus. Another tier. Think of the hottest movie star. It’s probably even more than that.”
The benefits are immense. The money is obscene. The lifestyle is enviable. But it also comes with some strange side effects that, six years later, can never be normalized to a normal dude like Curry.
“It’s uncomfortable at times, for sure,” Curry said in a recent interview with The Athletic on the subject. “Because I’m not that important. I’m not.”
If privacy is preferred, everyone agrees the best way for Curry to travel these days is alongside an a$$hole. He has a tough time saying no. a$$holes don’t. Meet Andre Iguodala, an expert in the field. He was a rookie in Philadelphia when Allen Iverson was still near his apex.
“AI had a cult following,” Iguodala said.
Iverson often went out after hours. He drew crowds. He’d sometimes want to mingle. He sometimes wouldn’t. Everyone’s mood fluctuates. That was Iguodala’s introduction to that next level of celebrity and why it matters, from a fan perspective, when and how you approach the target.
“That’s when I learned the term ‘male groupie,'” Iguodala said.
Iguodala sometimes joined Iverson at clubs or bars — more crowded, volatile settings. Curry keeps a lower profile. When he and Iguodala hang out, it’s often to go golfing, to get away, to escape the mobs of humans who invade their job site. But that can sometimes be impossible.
“People will be waiting outside the gate or in the parking lot of a golf course,” Iguodala said. “It’s like, how did you even know we were here? People sitting around waiting to see what car we leave in. They’re at the hotel. They’ll get there early in the morning to see where we’re at. They’ll follow you.”
Iguodala can sense when Curry — known for his graciousness, especially with kids — wants seclusion. He also knows how to get it.
“Andre’s got that gift where he can make you feel uncomfortable,” Livingston said. “Like, ‘Uhh, maybe I don’t want to get a picture today.'”
“He loves it,” Curry said. “He loves being that guy.”
“I’m the dikkhead,” Iguodala said. “I don’t care. I’ll tell you: ‘Get the fukk away. What are y’all doing?‘ There’s a line that you can’t cross. People cross it a lot with him.”
Somebody crossed it after a recent practice at UCLA. There were about 25 autograph seekers outside the exit of the gym, lined up next to the team’s bus, about a 100-yard walk away. Some of them were kids. Most were polite. One of them, an attention-seeking adult, probably around 50, was there to berate Curry and Kevin Durant.
Sellout. Prick. Fraud. The guy started yelling at Curry almost immediately after he appeared.
“There’s always one of those guys and he ruins it for everybody else,” Iguodala said. “It’s just, alright, man, we’re done.”
Instead of interacting and signing a few autographs, taking a few pictures, the vibe turned awkward and Curry sped away as the guy followed, raining down insults.
“It’s interesting how your time is their time,” Curry said. “That part I’ll never get used to because it’s hard — even before I got to the league, being around NBA guys, growing up with my Dad — you saw people who did it the right way, people who did it the wrong way.”
Iguodala remembers a situation in the 2014 preseason. It was his second season with the Warriors. Curry’s stardom was in the earlier stages of its rapid ascent. Everyone was still getting used to the ramifications.
“We were in, like, where were we — Mexico?” Iguodala said. “Where’s Houston’s D-League team?”
They were in Hidalgo, a small border town on the southern tip of Texas, the rare place an NBA player can expect to move around relatively unbothered. Iguodala and Curry were hungry. They slipped out of their hotel to walk to a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings.
A group of mostly middle-aged men were awaiting them at the entrance. They began pestering them for attention. They wouldn’t stop.
“There are people — when you don’t comply with what they want, they treat you like you’re a bad person,” Iguodala said.
“Wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Curry said. “Stalked us the entire way we walked — 10 minutes to the restaurant, 10 minutes back, even after we had said no. At that point, I don’t mind sticking to my guns on that because, you know, if I’m not being rude to you, it’s just, ‘Hey, not right now,’ you gotta respect that.”
“You gotta know who you’re dealing with,” Iguodala said. “You’re dealing with kids, it’s different. But if you’re dealing with grown men who try to abuse you for their wants, I ain’t having it.”
“You appreciate the ones who are very respectful,” Curry said. “The ones who say, ‘Hey, I just want to say hi, nice to meet you.’ So they can tell people, ‘Hey, I met so and so.’ I saw all the different types of examples of that growing up, so I think I’m a little bit more sensitive to that now, feeling like I can be available to people as long as they approach it the right way.”
So Curry was rich, but his net worth wasn’t yet similar to Drake’s. He was famous, but his social media following wasn’t yet in the Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith stratosphere.
“Back when I was taking commercial flights,” Curry said, laughing lightly at how casual that sentence has become. “I never flew private.”
The Warriors had just made the playoffs for the first time in his career. That elevated Curry onto a larger stage. He shined in their first-round upset of the Nuggets and second-round loss to the Spurs, playing that smooth, skilled, bombs-away style that appeals to so many.
But his offseason was here, which typically meant the spotlight dimmed. So he, his wife Ayesha and their infant daughter, Riley, were off to the airport for a flight back to his hometown of Charlotte.
They got in the security line. A few people recognized them. Not completely abnormal. They got up to the first TSA agent. Recognized again. Whatever. Maybe the ID check tipped him off.
But it was relentless. They were recognized while going through every leg of the security check, ogled at while scooping up their bags, stopped several times on the way to the gate and so on. As new parents, this was one of their first times traveling with a baby. That is challenging enough. But now they were walking through a red carpet of obstructions at the wrong time.
“One of the worst experiences of my life,” Curry said. “Getting bothered left and right from the time we showed up at the airport to the time we got to the house in Charlotte. That was probably when it was like, OK, this is crazy. And, yeah, it’s got even crazier from there.”
Curry has come back again to his hometown this weekend, this time after chartering a private jet from Portland. He’s here for the NBA’s All-Star festivities, when he’s expected to be the lead focus of the league’s marketing effort.
“The unofficial host,” Steve Kerr called him.
So much will be asked of Curry, so much attention awaits, so many eyes beaming his direction, so many hands out. But that’s no longer unique. It’s his everyday reality.
“He’s an A-list celebrity,” Shaun Livingston said. “A-plus. Another tier. Think of the hottest movie star. It’s probably even more than that.”
The benefits are immense. The money is obscene. The lifestyle is enviable. But it also comes with some strange side effects that, six years later, can never be normalized to a normal dude like Curry.
“It’s uncomfortable at times, for sure,” Curry said in a recent interview with The Athletic on the subject. “Because I’m not that important. I’m not.”
If privacy is preferred, everyone agrees the best way for Curry to travel these days is alongside an a$$hole. He has a tough time saying no. a$$holes don’t. Meet Andre Iguodala, an expert in the field. He was a rookie in Philadelphia when Allen Iverson was still near his apex.
“AI had a cult following,” Iguodala said.
Iverson often went out after hours. He drew crowds. He’d sometimes want to mingle. He sometimes wouldn’t. Everyone’s mood fluctuates. That was Iguodala’s introduction to that next level of celebrity and why it matters, from a fan perspective, when and how you approach the target.
“That’s when I learned the term ‘male groupie,'” Iguodala said.
Iguodala sometimes joined Iverson at clubs or bars — more crowded, volatile settings. Curry keeps a lower profile. When he and Iguodala hang out, it’s often to go golfing, to get away, to escape the mobs of humans who invade their job site. But that can sometimes be impossible.
“People will be waiting outside the gate or in the parking lot of a golf course,” Iguodala said. “It’s like, how did you even know we were here? People sitting around waiting to see what car we leave in. They’re at the hotel. They’ll get there early in the morning to see where we’re at. They’ll follow you.”
Iguodala can sense when Curry — known for his graciousness, especially with kids — wants seclusion. He also knows how to get it.
“Andre’s got that gift where he can make you feel uncomfortable,” Livingston said. “Like, ‘Uhh, maybe I don’t want to get a picture today.'”
“He loves it,” Curry said. “He loves being that guy.”
“I’m the dikkhead,” Iguodala said. “I don’t care. I’ll tell you: ‘Get the fukk away. What are y’all doing?‘ There’s a line that you can’t cross. People cross it a lot with him.”
Somebody crossed it after a recent practice at UCLA. There were about 25 autograph seekers outside the exit of the gym, lined up next to the team’s bus, about a 100-yard walk away. Some of them were kids. Most were polite. One of them, an attention-seeking adult, probably around 50, was there to berate Curry and Kevin Durant.
Sellout. Prick. Fraud. The guy started yelling at Curry almost immediately after he appeared.
“There’s always one of those guys and he ruins it for everybody else,” Iguodala said. “It’s just, alright, man, we’re done.”
Instead of interacting and signing a few autographs, taking a few pictures, the vibe turned awkward and Curry sped away as the guy followed, raining down insults.
“It’s interesting how your time is their time,” Curry said. “That part I’ll never get used to because it’s hard — even before I got to the league, being around NBA guys, growing up with my Dad — you saw people who did it the right way, people who did it the wrong way.”
Iguodala remembers a situation in the 2014 preseason. It was his second season with the Warriors. Curry’s stardom was in the earlier stages of its rapid ascent. Everyone was still getting used to the ramifications.
“We were in, like, where were we — Mexico?” Iguodala said. “Where’s Houston’s D-League team?”
They were in Hidalgo, a small border town on the southern tip of Texas, the rare place an NBA player can expect to move around relatively unbothered. Iguodala and Curry were hungry. They slipped out of their hotel to walk to a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings.
A group of mostly middle-aged men were awaiting them at the entrance. They began pestering them for attention. They wouldn’t stop.
“There are people — when you don’t comply with what they want, they treat you like you’re a bad person,” Iguodala said.
“Wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Curry said. “Stalked us the entire way we walked — 10 minutes to the restaurant, 10 minutes back, even after we had said no. At that point, I don’t mind sticking to my guns on that because, you know, if I’m not being rude to you, it’s just, ‘Hey, not right now,’ you gotta respect that.”
“You gotta know who you’re dealing with,” Iguodala said. “You’re dealing with kids, it’s different. But if you’re dealing with grown men who try to abuse you for their wants, I ain’t having it.”
“You appreciate the ones who are very respectful,” Curry said. “The ones who say, ‘Hey, I just want to say hi, nice to meet you.’ So they can tell people, ‘Hey, I met so and so.’ I saw all the different types of examples of that growing up, so I think I’m a little bit more sensitive to that now, feeling like I can be available to people as long as they approach it the right way.”
The Warriors’ practice facility is in downtown Oakland. Fans often wait outside the parking garage, searching for an autograph or even just a glimpse of one of the stars. They sometimes succeed. They sometimes act creepy.
“I’ve been followed a couple times in my car, noticed that people are trying to tail me,” Curry said. “I had a 007 experience. I’m on my way home. I recognized it well before they knew where I lived. So I took a couple random turns to get them off my tail. Had to turn into a gas station and then pull out quick, that type of vibe.”
This was a few years back. Curry alerted team security. They now have precautionary measures in place to help prevent such situations. Through experience, he’s crafted strategies to live within this new reality.
“At the end of the day, it’s not terrible,” Curry said. “It’s just … I never envisioned this being the situation.”
Camera phones complicate matters. Kerr played with Michael Jordan back in the ’90s. In the last century, he’s one of the country’s most famous humans. Wherever Jordan went, obsessive crowds followed, much like Curry.
“Exactly the same thing as Jordan, amazement that they’re seeing him in person and this god-like status,” Kerr said. “But the only difference is the camera phones. Back then, we were able to be ourselves more in public, not worry so much about ending up on Twitter. You could let loose a little bit more.”
If Jordan wasn’t in the best mood that day, if he grumbled at a fan, if he acted silly after a few drinks, those in the area might see it, document it in their mind, share it with their inner circle. But now, the world can be anyone’s inner circle. Hit record, upload it to the web and, if it’s even the tiniest bit salacious, it’s going viral.
“I know it’s not a new invention — camera phones have been around for 20 years or whatever — but they’re really good now,” Kerr said. “I’m always struck by when Steph or Kevin or any of our guys, but mostly the really famous superstar guys, they walk into a room and immediately everyone pulls their phone out. It’s so uncomfortable.
“You think about just living your life in the spotlight. It’s more than a spotlight. It’s constant surveillance. It’s disconcerting. You walk into a room and, bam, there’s 20 cameras recording your every move. What is that? It’s a weird human phenomenon.”
A couple years back, after a road game in Brooklyn, Curry came out of the tunnel in search of a college teammate who’d stayed after the buzzer. There was a crowd of adoring autograph seekers loaded in a nearby section, trying to get his attention, as he peered beyond them in search of his friend.
The mother of a kid in the first row took a video, pointed toward Curry, from behind her young son, as he pleaded for Curry’s attention and never got it. She fused it together with a video of her son later crying about the incident and put it online. Curry was barbecued across the web for it. The criticism stung him at the time.
“Obviously, if the camera would have turned around you would’ve understood why I wouldn’t have locked in on one kid,” Curry said. “It’s unfortunate that that kid, the kid who was upset about it, like deservedly so, because that’s his one moment to try to reach out to me. It’s part of the beast, for sure. Just sucks that’s the way it came off.”
Those around him promise: For every kid accidentally ignored, there are 100 he positively impacts.
“I recently had a friend of mine whose nephew — they came all the way out to Oakland,” Alfonzo McKinnie said. “It was his nephew’s dream to meet Steph Curry. I asked Steph if he could take a picture with him. He did and the little kid started crying. He started crying right there. They put a post on Instagram and everything, like, this is the best day of my life. Now that I’m here, I see that type of stuff every day with him.”
Ever seen a random dude sneaking around Walnut Creek, hoodie up, hat on, wearing sunglasses inside? Maybe he’s darting around Safeway. But don’t let him scare you. It’s probably just Steph Curry, testing out one of his incognito strategies to grab a few rare minutes in public away from the spotlight.
One time he wore a zebra mask to the mall to avoid being recognized. It didn’t work.
“My wife always gets mad,” Curry said. “She’s like, ‘Man, you look like the friggin’ Unabomber, you’re drawing more attention to yourself.‘ So I gotta finesse a little bit better. But it does help to (only) be 6-foot-3, for sure, helps you blend in a little bit. I just know where to go now.”
In the strange, sometimes dark social media world, Curry is followed by nearly 24 million accounts on Instagram. He follows back 612. One of them is a fan account, which, however creepy, delivers him a benefit.
“They accumulate and aggregate like any picture we’re in,” Curry said. “To be honest, I follow one just to know what’s going on. And I’ll see pictures and I’m like: Huh? How did anybody get that picture?
“There will be a really good pictures of, like, me and my kid at the game and I’m like, Yo, I want that picture. … But it’s kinda weird how I’m getting it. I didn’t even know it existed. That’s the type of stuff that messes your mind up a little bit.”
In the arena, his place of employment, most things are considered fair game. He gets paid handsomely for his job and he very much understands all the responsibilities, beyond basketball, that are baked into that massive check he receives.
But away from the arena, when he’s off the clock and with his family, a whole lot of stuff becomes understandably off-limits. The line most commonly crossed: photo requests with Riley, their now 6-year-old daughter.
“First, it’s like, the fact that you asked that is really weird,” Curry said. “I understand there’s a connection from the podium thing, but …”
Does Curry regret putting his then-2-year-old daughter Riley in the spotlight during the 2015 playoffs? “Yeah, I do. I do. Just in terms of I didn’t truly understand how it would, um, end.” (Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports)
During the 2015 Western Conference finals, Curry famously brought Riley, then 2, to the press conference with him after their Game 1 win over Houston and again after Game 5 when they won to advance to this core’s first NBA Finals. She had some cute moments that went viral. On the surface, it was harmless, creating a two-day story about their charismatic daughter.
But two days in the spotlight can alter a childhood. She’s now famous in her own way, even if that wasn’t the intent. It’s why they have to deal with strangers wanting a picture with her. So does Steph regret bringing her to that podium?
“Um … man. Hmm,” Curry sighed. “Naa. … Yeah, I do. I do. Just in terms of I didn’t truly understand how it would, um, end.”
He thought about it a bit more.
“But, thankfully, the only thing I don’t regret is that it raised our antenna and awareness earlier than we probably anticipated,” Curry said. “In terms of how we need to be as parents with our careers, in order to protect our kids’ childhoods. Because you mentioned, even me growing up in the NBA, it’s just an entirely different thing. My dad played 10 years in Charlotte, he was the man in Charlotte, but I could still go around and be normal.”
There are levels to fame. Dell, his father, was in that middle tier, the less lucrative but more comfortable realm, the same one Steph inhabited until he was about 24 years old. But in the past six years he’s blasted off into a place so far beyond it, a level of stardom that can warp a mind.
You’d think, maybe, because this is the only world his young children have ever known, it’s easier for them to handle. But like any concerned parent, he’s thinking more about the long game, when retirement eventually arrives, when the attention fades, when his children begin to mature and must carve out their own individual paths.
“They’re growing up in the height of it. That’s the hard part,” Curry said. “I’m definitely worried about it. Every day. But as long as we can keep things normal at home, protect our privacy, do things together as a family, be aware of their experience, in terms of how people treat them because of their last name, how recognizable they might be. You got to paint the picture for them about what’s real and what’s situational. That’s hard.”
Fame impacts those around you. But, if not handled carefully, it can be most detrimental to the person at the hub of all the attention. Curry is an expert self-checker. There are hundreds of cautionary tales, those “rise leads to the fall” tragedies, documenting the trappings of stardom.
Curry is aware of them. He’s studied them. He understands why they happen. They inform him how to best protect against the most common pitfalls.
“One hundred percent,” Curry said. “If you’re not purposeful, if you don’t have a good foundation to start, if you don’t understand your identity is not solidified by how many people know who you are, how many people like you, going through that roller coaster, you can fall to the wayside, for sure.
“You just have to be as authentic as possible, understand that none of the stuff people say is that serious. You can be aware of it, react to it, but it can’t be how you form your true identity.
“I’ve been blessed to have a foundation behind me where I can remove myself from all that stuff and still feel like I belong somewhere. It can definitely be intoxicating at times and you’ve really got to guard yourself.”
His family gets a bulk of the credit, starting with his parents, who molded him, and then his wife and kids, who keep him grounded during the height of this celebrity storm.
But he’s also a fortunate case of circumstance, a late-bloomer by usual NBA superstar standards. He didn’t explode into this colossus international brand until he went from very good to beyond elite. And he didn’t do that until his mid-20s.
“In terms of the timing of it all, I’m glad it happened the way it did for me,” Curry said. “Because thinking about 21-year-old me with this level of fame, man, it’s why I have the ultimate level of respect for LeBron (James), a guy who has been in the spotlight since he was 16.
“Like, for him to be the man that he is, the father that he is, the husband, nobody’s perfect, but that (early celebrity situation) could’ve been a disaster. So in terms of like how my journey went, I’m glad it happened the way it did because I did have a chance to figure out who I was and find out what’s important to me and then work out the fame part of it later.”
“I’ve been followed a couple times in my car, noticed that people are trying to tail me,” Curry said. “I had a 007 experience. I’m on my way home. I recognized it well before they knew where I lived. So I took a couple random turns to get them off my tail. Had to turn into a gas station and then pull out quick, that type of vibe.”
This was a few years back. Curry alerted team security. They now have precautionary measures in place to help prevent such situations. Through experience, he’s crafted strategies to live within this new reality.
“At the end of the day, it’s not terrible,” Curry said. “It’s just … I never envisioned this being the situation.”
Camera phones complicate matters. Kerr played with Michael Jordan back in the ’90s. In the last century, he’s one of the country’s most famous humans. Wherever Jordan went, obsessive crowds followed, much like Curry.
“Exactly the same thing as Jordan, amazement that they’re seeing him in person and this god-like status,” Kerr said. “But the only difference is the camera phones. Back then, we were able to be ourselves more in public, not worry so much about ending up on Twitter. You could let loose a little bit more.”
If Jordan wasn’t in the best mood that day, if he grumbled at a fan, if he acted silly after a few drinks, those in the area might see it, document it in their mind, share it with their inner circle. But now, the world can be anyone’s inner circle. Hit record, upload it to the web and, if it’s even the tiniest bit salacious, it’s going viral.
“I know it’s not a new invention — camera phones have been around for 20 years or whatever — but they’re really good now,” Kerr said. “I’m always struck by when Steph or Kevin or any of our guys, but mostly the really famous superstar guys, they walk into a room and immediately everyone pulls their phone out. It’s so uncomfortable.
“You think about just living your life in the spotlight. It’s more than a spotlight. It’s constant surveillance. It’s disconcerting. You walk into a room and, bam, there’s 20 cameras recording your every move. What is that? It’s a weird human phenomenon.”
A couple years back, after a road game in Brooklyn, Curry came out of the tunnel in search of a college teammate who’d stayed after the buzzer. There was a crowd of adoring autograph seekers loaded in a nearby section, trying to get his attention, as he peered beyond them in search of his friend.
The mother of a kid in the first row took a video, pointed toward Curry, from behind her young son, as he pleaded for Curry’s attention and never got it. She fused it together with a video of her son later crying about the incident and put it online. Curry was barbecued across the web for it. The criticism stung him at the time.
“Obviously, if the camera would have turned around you would’ve understood why I wouldn’t have locked in on one kid,” Curry said. “It’s unfortunate that that kid, the kid who was upset about it, like deservedly so, because that’s his one moment to try to reach out to me. It’s part of the beast, for sure. Just sucks that’s the way it came off.”
Those around him promise: For every kid accidentally ignored, there are 100 he positively impacts.
“I recently had a friend of mine whose nephew — they came all the way out to Oakland,” Alfonzo McKinnie said. “It was his nephew’s dream to meet Steph Curry. I asked Steph if he could take a picture with him. He did and the little kid started crying. He started crying right there. They put a post on Instagram and everything, like, this is the best day of my life. Now that I’m here, I see that type of stuff every day with him.”
Ever seen a random dude sneaking around Walnut Creek, hoodie up, hat on, wearing sunglasses inside? Maybe he’s darting around Safeway. But don’t let him scare you. It’s probably just Steph Curry, testing out one of his incognito strategies to grab a few rare minutes in public away from the spotlight.
One time he wore a zebra mask to the mall to avoid being recognized. It didn’t work.
“My wife always gets mad,” Curry said. “She’s like, ‘Man, you look like the friggin’ Unabomber, you’re drawing more attention to yourself.‘ So I gotta finesse a little bit better. But it does help to (only) be 6-foot-3, for sure, helps you blend in a little bit. I just know where to go now.”
In the strange, sometimes dark social media world, Curry is followed by nearly 24 million accounts on Instagram. He follows back 612. One of them is a fan account, which, however creepy, delivers him a benefit.
“They accumulate and aggregate like any picture we’re in,” Curry said. “To be honest, I follow one just to know what’s going on. And I’ll see pictures and I’m like: Huh? How did anybody get that picture?
“There will be a really good pictures of, like, me and my kid at the game and I’m like, Yo, I want that picture. … But it’s kinda weird how I’m getting it. I didn’t even know it existed. That’s the type of stuff that messes your mind up a little bit.”
In the arena, his place of employment, most things are considered fair game. He gets paid handsomely for his job and he very much understands all the responsibilities, beyond basketball, that are baked into that massive check he receives.
But away from the arena, when he’s off the clock and with his family, a whole lot of stuff becomes understandably off-limits. The line most commonly crossed: photo requests with Riley, their now 6-year-old daughter.
“First, it’s like, the fact that you asked that is really weird,” Curry said. “I understand there’s a connection from the podium thing, but …”
Does Curry regret putting his then-2-year-old daughter Riley in the spotlight during the 2015 playoffs? “Yeah, I do. I do. Just in terms of I didn’t truly understand how it would, um, end.” (Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports)
During the 2015 Western Conference finals, Curry famously brought Riley, then 2, to the press conference with him after their Game 1 win over Houston and again after Game 5 when they won to advance to this core’s first NBA Finals. She had some cute moments that went viral. On the surface, it was harmless, creating a two-day story about their charismatic daughter.
But two days in the spotlight can alter a childhood. She’s now famous in her own way, even if that wasn’t the intent. It’s why they have to deal with strangers wanting a picture with her. So does Steph regret bringing her to that podium?
“Um … man. Hmm,” Curry sighed. “Naa. … Yeah, I do. I do. Just in terms of I didn’t truly understand how it would, um, end.”
He thought about it a bit more.
“But, thankfully, the only thing I don’t regret is that it raised our antenna and awareness earlier than we probably anticipated,” Curry said. “In terms of how we need to be as parents with our careers, in order to protect our kids’ childhoods. Because you mentioned, even me growing up in the NBA, it’s just an entirely different thing. My dad played 10 years in Charlotte, he was the man in Charlotte, but I could still go around and be normal.”
There are levels to fame. Dell, his father, was in that middle tier, the less lucrative but more comfortable realm, the same one Steph inhabited until he was about 24 years old. But in the past six years he’s blasted off into a place so far beyond it, a level of stardom that can warp a mind.
You’d think, maybe, because this is the only world his young children have ever known, it’s easier for them to handle. But like any concerned parent, he’s thinking more about the long game, when retirement eventually arrives, when the attention fades, when his children begin to mature and must carve out their own individual paths.
“They’re growing up in the height of it. That’s the hard part,” Curry said. “I’m definitely worried about it. Every day. But as long as we can keep things normal at home, protect our privacy, do things together as a family, be aware of their experience, in terms of how people treat them because of their last name, how recognizable they might be. You got to paint the picture for them about what’s real and what’s situational. That’s hard.”
Fame impacts those around you. But, if not handled carefully, it can be most detrimental to the person at the hub of all the attention. Curry is an expert self-checker. There are hundreds of cautionary tales, those “rise leads to the fall” tragedies, documenting the trappings of stardom.
Curry is aware of them. He’s studied them. He understands why they happen. They inform him how to best protect against the most common pitfalls.
“One hundred percent,” Curry said. “If you’re not purposeful, if you don’t have a good foundation to start, if you don’t understand your identity is not solidified by how many people know who you are, how many people like you, going through that roller coaster, you can fall to the wayside, for sure.
“You just have to be as authentic as possible, understand that none of the stuff people say is that serious. You can be aware of it, react to it, but it can’t be how you form your true identity.
“I’ve been blessed to have a foundation behind me where I can remove myself from all that stuff and still feel like I belong somewhere. It can definitely be intoxicating at times and you’ve really got to guard yourself.”
His family gets a bulk of the credit, starting with his parents, who molded him, and then his wife and kids, who keep him grounded during the height of this celebrity storm.
But he’s also a fortunate case of circumstance, a late-bloomer by usual NBA superstar standards. He didn’t explode into this colossus international brand until he went from very good to beyond elite. And he didn’t do that until his mid-20s.
“In terms of the timing of it all, I’m glad it happened the way it did for me,” Curry said. “Because thinking about 21-year-old me with this level of fame, man, it’s why I have the ultimate level of respect for LeBron (James), a guy who has been in the spotlight since he was 16.
“Like, for him to be the man that he is, the father that he is, the husband, nobody’s perfect, but that (early celebrity situation) could’ve been a disaster. So in terms of like how my journey went, I’m glad it happened the way it did because I did have a chance to figure out who I was and find out what’s important to me and then work out the fame part of it later.”
Man post the entire article... they want folk to subscribe in order to read the article in its entirety
G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman
Logic Is Absent Wherever Hate Is Present
look at the two posts above yours.
I just saw it...
Roland Coltrane
Superstar
another goon
If we can't get Robin Lopez or Dedmon, I'd be completely OK with Gortat coming off the bench. Big strong guy, good passer, screener.....I can see it.