He has three championship rings, two MVP awards and a contract worth $201 million with practically zero negotiation. He’s 30 years old, set for three lifetimes and still goes to work as if he has something to prove.
He doesn’t, of course, but that’s not how Stephen Curry’s mind works.
Curry was playing exquisite basketball before sustaining a groin strain that caused him to miss 11 games last month. He had to sit for three weeks and hated every second. When he returned, he would be handing out punishments to all those that dared to get in his way.
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SIGN UP HERE The general foe on Wednesday night was the Cleveland Cavaliers, old enemies with new faces. The specific foe was rookie point guard Collin Sexton, heralded as the team’s leader of the future. Neither survived Curry’s ruthlessness.
He went nuclear from the opening tip, draining four 3-pointers in the first quarter en route to 16 points. He finished with 42 points in 34 minutes to lead the Warriors to a 129-105 smacking of the Cavaliers.
“Three weeks is a long time in terms of every day wanting to get back out there,” Curry told reporters in Cleveland. “But in the grand scheme of things, if you put in the work and stay patient, there’s going to be a little transition period. But you hope to get back to where you were at.”
Curry’s back, all the way. Since an anxious first half in his return last Saturday against the Pistons, he has been playing at much the same level as he did the first few weeks of the season, when he was laying waste to the rest of the NBA.
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Over his last five halves, he’s shooting 59.2 percent (29-of-49) from the field – and a preposterous 64.3 percent (18-of-28) from beyond the arc.
“We’ve seen it before where Steph is out with an injury and comes back and starts lighting it up right away,” coach Steve Kerr said.
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When Curry is restricted to watching his teammates struggle, as they did for much of his absence, he’s eager to address the issues. And if they’re playing well, he longs to experience the joy they’re feeling.
While the Warriors were going 5-6 and coping with the fallout from the blowup between Kevin Durant and Draymond Green on Nov. 12 in Los Angeles, Curry had nothing but a seat on the bench.
“It’s been a rough three or four weeks, all the way around, and sitting on the sideline and watching wasn’t fun,” he said.
It’s fun again for the Warriors. Curry is back, he’s still ripping the nets and the Warriors are the beneficiaries. As he goes, so do they.
The Warriors were outscored 54-46 in the first half of Curry’s return in Detroit. In the five halves since, they’ve outscored their opponents by 40, 313-273.
In more than 30 years playing, analyzing, managing and coaching in the NBA, Kerr concedes that it’s not typical for a player to sit out several weeks and find full rhythm after only 24 warm-up minutes.
“It’s pretty rare,” Kerr said. “But Steph is rare in general. In everything he does.
“He’s just that good as a player. He changes the whole game with his range and his speed and his joy. We’re just a different team when he’s out there.”
Curry lives to break the hearts of opponents. He thrives being better than the man assigned to defend him, whether it’s a rookie like Sexton or a future Hall of Famer like Chris Paul.
Curry is his team’s engine and he knows it. He likes nothing more than reminding the rest of the league.