In May 2019 an NBA assistant coach named Darren Erman — then with New Orleans and just hired to a similar post with the Knicks — hit upon an essential truth about the Curry brothers. About Stephen, a three-time champion and two-time MVP with Golden State, as well as Seth, who has gouged out his own niche in the league.
They look almost angelic, almost … dare it be said? … soft. And that, Erman said, is sheer folly.
“Both those Curry brothers, man,” he told CBSSports.com. “People still make that mistake thinking they’re like these nice guys or whatever, but they are ultra-competitive.”
In fact he characterized Seth, a guy he had coached in summer league in 2015, as “a guy that always wants to prove people wrong.”
And so he has.
Under-recruited out of high school, Curry wound up at Duke, via Liberty. Undrafted out of college, he macheted his way through pro basketball’s underbrush to prime-time minutes in Sacramento, then Dallas, then Portland, then Dallas again. And now he’s a Sixer, having come to the team as part of the breathtaking roster makeover engineered by new president Daryl Morey.
The Sixers sent Josh Richardson and a second-round pick to the Mavericks for Curry. Richardson is probably the better player of the two, but Curry would appear to be the better fit in Philadelphia, in that his offensive skillset complements the abilities of franchise cornerstones Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
Curry, in fact, described himself as “a perfect match” for Simmons in a Zoom call with reporters Wednesday morning. Seems so, seeing as he is a 6-2 sniper/slasher and Simmons a 6-10 playmaker who (you may have heard) does not like to pull the trigger from anywhere outside 10 feet.
Curry averaged 12.4 points in 24.6 minutes a night this past season for the Mavericks, with his respective shooting percentages (.495/.452/.825) all outstanding and his per-36-minute scoring rate (18.1) suggesting even greater things are possible. And it should be mentioned that his career 3-point shooting percentage (.443) is superior to not only Steph’s (.435) but also that of their dad, Dell, who played 16 years in the league, all but six of those with the Charlotte Hornets. Dell, now a Hornets broadcaster, knocked 3s down at a 40.2-percent clip. The disclaimer is that Seth has just 256 NBA games under his belt — 443 fewer than Steph and 827 fewer than Pops — but the mind nonetheless boggles at the thought of a HORSE game between the three of them at, say, a family picnic.
Seth, who at age 30 is almost three years younger than Steph, long ago learned to shrug off family comparisons.
“I just focus on what I do,” he said. “I play basketball the way I know how to play it, just try to be the best player I can be personally.”
He was born and raised in Charlotte, where his dad was well on his way to becoming something of an institution, having played for the Hornets from 1988 — i.e., two years before Seth was born — until 1998.
“So,” Seth said, “I feel like I kind of grew up under the spotlight in some sense. It got larger as Steph became an MVP candidate and one of the best in the league, but it’s no different for me and my process, and the way I go about doing things. It’s just knowing who I am as a player and maximizing what I do. And then everybody can compare us how they want.”
(One last family matter: In Philadelphia he will be playing for his father-in-law, Doc Rivers, Seth having married Doc’s daughter Callie in September 2019. Seth doesn’t see that as a problem, either. “It’s the same thing every day as I’ve been doing my whole career — go in there, do my job,” he said. “And he’s gonna do his job to the best of his ability. And our job is to win.”)
Curry politely pushed back when I suggested Wednesday that he had had some ups and downs early in his career, pointing out that that was true only when he had health issues. Most notable of those was the stress reaction in his left tibia that required surgery and deprived him of the 2017-18 season, in his first go-round with Dallas. But when asked earlier in the call about his progression as a player, he acknowledged that it has been anything but a straight line.
“My journey,” he said, “is having to earn it, every step of the way.”
After a single season at Liberty, he played three at Duke, becoming an All-ACC performer by the time he was done. But he appeared in exactly four NBA games over his first two pro seasons, spending most of his time in the G-League (then the D-League) and a significant part of his offseasons as summer-league fodder. (Fun fact: He played for another Pennsylvania-based team, the Erie BayHawks — an Orlando Magic affiliate — in 2014-15.)
It was in the summer of 2015, while playing for that Pelicans squad led by Erman, that Curry’s NBA career finally gained traction. Before that, there were those who wondered if he was anything more than an undersized wing with a subpar handle. Erman put the ball in his hands, and turned him loose. Curry made plays, created shots for himself and others. He showed that his was a complete game, that he wasn’t merely a catch-and-shoot guy.
A scout told CBSSports.com that that was “the break he needed” — that while everybody knew he could play, there had still been reservations. After that, though, it was clear he would get a full-fledged NBA opportunity, and the Kings gave him one. He played well for them in ‘15-16, even better the next season with the Mavs, after signing with them as a free agent.
There was that injury-induced pause in ‘17-18, then solid seasons with the Blazers and Mavs after that. The Sixers will be the 10th team to bring him in, when summer-league stops, 10-day contracts and G-League stays are taken into account — Golden State, Memphis, Cleveland, Orlando and Phoenix being the others.
“I had to earn my opportunity, make the most of it,” he said Wednesday. “That’s why I’m appreciative of every year and every step of the way.”
And now?
“I’m just looking forward to the next step of my career,” he said.
If history is any indication, it will be nothing he can’t handle.