Stephen Curry is the goldfish in the following parable, which pertains to the Golden State Warriors.
When one of my sons was about 3, he got particularly lucky at a school carnival and won a goldfish. (This represents the luck the Warriors had in landing Curry as a rookie.) This goldfish turned out to be a superstar. He swam forever, made few demands, was always smiling.
Then the fishie died. I found him floating. I was sad, sure, but he’d had a good life, he had far exceeded the goldfish life expectancy of two or three days. The toilet seemed an unkind burial place, so I took the little fella into the alley and chucked him out, water and all.
He started flopping around like crazy. Maybe he was doing a “Free Willy,” but I couldn’t just let him jump around and get run over by a garbage truck. I chased him for a minute (“What is that man doing in the alley?”), caught him, rushed him back into the house and refilled his bowl.
Let’s be honest, we didn’t say it, but many of us felt like Curry finally, quietly (shhh!) had slipped over the hill. The dude turned 36 last season. Allen Iverson went over the hill at 33, ageless Chris Paul at 37. Father Time is undefeated.
Curry, after 10 straight seasons in the top 11 in MVP voting (with the exception of an injury season), received zero votes. His scoring average fell three points and his 3-point shooting plunged to 40.8%, well below his career 42.6%.
What did this mean? It meant that the urgency to maximize the Curry Window began to feel slightly less urgent. For the Warriors to win another NBA championship during the Curry Era, Steph would have to be at the peak of his game, not a half step beyond his peak.
Not that general manager Mike Dunleavy and the folks in the front office weren’t trying to get help, in the form of an elite Second Banana, like Lauri Markkanen. It just as if like if the Warriors struck out in that quest, which they have done so far, it was less tragic.
Then came Curry’s Paris performance, which, for the first four games, reinforced our sad but unspoken belief that if he wasn’t toast, he was no longer a spongy-fresh baguette. He can play with the big boys, but he cannot dominate them with his force of will. Through four games, he was disappointed. Not an embarrassment, but — you know.
The Curry Window began to feel like a bit of a wishful illusion.
Then, suddenly, night-night Curry arrived, and everything changed. He became the hippest cat in Paris since Jean-Paul Belmondo, or Savior-Faire, the uncatchable mouse in the old Klondike Kat cartoons.
The stakes were very high. I’m not saying the gold medal was sweeter for the players than an NBA championship would be, but losing the gold medal would definitely have been more crushing than losing an NBA title.
Curry didn’t just step up his game, he took off like a moon rocket. His teammates grabbed onto his sneakers and went along for the ride. It was telling that on Curry’s gold-clinching fall-away 3-pointer against France, Kevin Durant, one of basketball’s all-time big-moment spotlight embracers, passed the ball back to Curry.
Curry was my kid’s goldfish. Not dead yet!
Even if you’ve been watching Curry for 15 years, that two-game takeover, under high pressure, was surprising. I bet even head coach Steve Kerr’s eyes broadened a bit. And Dunleavy’s, and owner Joe Lacob’s.
I don’t want to overdramatize it. Nobody was begging Curry to retire, like folks did with Willie Mays, for example, when Mays got traded to the Mets at age 41. Even a slightly faded Curry is still the best show in basketball.
And Curry certainly had the respect of people who know. Last season, he was voted the winner of the Jerry West Trophy as Clutch Player of the Year. The league’s coaches nominate the players, and a panel of media experts votes. It’s a quiet honor, and new (Curry was the second winner, after De’Aaron Fox), but big.
Still, the Warriors did miss the playoffs, and Curry was sub-Curry.
Then his in-Seine performance in Paris, was — apropos for the City of Light — illuminating.
Who knows, those two games might have surprised and inspired even Curry. Maybe he was subconsciously thinking it would be OK to ease into his golden years, but now his sights are elevated.
Did Paris alter the Warriors’ thinking, even a teensy bit? I’m saying it did. Very prepared, but sure.
When the trade deadline approaches, if the Warriors are waffling on whether to take a big swing at a deal that will sacrifice the future but improve the immediate team, those two games in Paris will be a reminder that when evaluating Curry’s over-the-hill status, you should err on the side of caution.
Don’t let Steph flop around in the alley too long before you get him back into a bowl of fresh water.
Scott Ostler has been a sports columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle since 1991. He has covered five Olympics for The Chronicle, as well as one soccer World Cup and numerous World Series, Super Bowls and NBA Finals.
Though he started in sports and is there now, Scott took a couple of side trips into the real world for The Chronicle. For three years he wrote a daily around-town column, and for one year, while still in sports, he wrote a weekly humorous commentary column.
He has authored several books and written for many national publications. Scott has been voted California Sportswriter of the Year 13 times, including six times while at The Chronicle. He moved to the Bay Area from Southern California, where he worked for the Los Angeles Times, the National Sports Daily and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.