As the NBA’s All-Time 3-point leader, Steph Curry has already marked his place in history. For the Warriors, he is their leader, their face, and their champion.
But it didn’t always start out like that for Curry. In the beginning, he was just a young kid hoping to make it in the league and, as he said in an interview with GQ, his family wasn’t even sure where the franchise was located when he was drafted.
After a while, Curry fell in love with the franchise and the city, where he would become one of the game’s greatest players ever.
(via GQ)
He’s embedded himself in the community here. “When I got drafted to Golden State, my grandma had no idea what city it was in,” Curry says with a laugh. “Everyone on the East Coast thinks L.A. is all of California.”
Upon his arrival, Curry instantly fell in love with the team, the Bay, its fans. Contrary to the belief that every Golden State Warriors fan arrived just in time to bask in the heyday of the team’s championship era, there was a long-suffering but devoted legion that slogged their way through the team’s lean years, which stretched right up until Curry first showed up in town. The team built a consistent core of players through the draft, while also building a culture of basketball that was both winning and thrilling. But there have been changes. Most notably, there was the transplanting of the team from Oakland back to San Francisco, which Curry admits has been a bit of a challenge. He loved Oakland, he says. The team’s identity was anchored there. “It feels a little bit like I got traded, but within the same organization,” he tells me. He and the team are trying to build a new legacy, a sort of Warriors 2.0 in San Francisco. Yet another opportunity for a second life.
The team’s location in the Bay has provided some opportunities for Curry to build a life away from basketball. He’s used his company SC30 Inc. to invest in tech startups like the travel platform Snaptravel. This entry into tech, he says, was first orchestrated by Andre Iguodala, during his first run with the Warriors. “When he came from Denver in 2013, he came with passion behind it and some connections and he started to pique everybody’s interest,” Curry says. “Our conversations in the locker room started to change drastically from rap albums and cars and all that type of stuff to like: You see that company’s IPO? And then obviously the awareness and exposure to what’s in our backyard, Silicon Valley—he was the first that really opened my eyes to what was possible in that arena.”
Historically, Golden State didn’t have much success before Steph rolled into the scene. They were a team seemingly always struggling to compete.
Seph’s arrival marked a change that may never be reversed. Now, over 12 years after the 2009 draft, and Golden State stands as one of the best teams in basketball, with 3 titles in the past decade and another one potentially on the way.
No doubt, it has been an amazing journey for the Warriors and their star, and it will be awesome to see what happens next.
