When most college coaches were scouting Stephen Curry, the major knock on him as a player was his size and inability to score near the basket. After a whirlwind last season where Curry lead his team to an elite eight appearance at the NCAA Tournament and earned himself an Associated Press Second Team All-American, those concerns seem to be wavering. The season that Stephen Curry has put up so far has only proven that his success last year wasn’t a fluke.
The real question is how did Stephen Curry not get recruited by any major program? That question is still unable to be answered by most coaches. Scout.com’s Dave Telep was one of the few who saw something in Curry when he came out of high school and commented in his original report that Curry was “The type of recruit who would leave his mark on the Davidson program” That mark has been made and still being made as we speak. The only major program to offer him a scholarship was Virginia Tech and they wanted to sit him on the bench or red-shirt him. (Also it is important to add that his father Dell Curry went to Virginia Tech)
Many scouts have commented that Davidson up-tempo offense is important for Curry’s overall production. This point does seem to have merit to it since Curry is most dangerous in transition and being able to spot-up to shoot a three-pointer. However, Curry is successful in half-court sets and is willing to move the ball to set up a team-mate. To be brutally honest, Loyola Maryland head coach Jimmy Pastos used an extreme double-team defense and as a testament to Curry held him scoreless but his team still won by thirty. Curry is currently averaging 30.8 ppg and 6.9 assists with wins against West Virginia, NC State and Winthrop making him an early candidate for the Naismith player of the year award.
What does this mean for his NBA stock though? Well, Curry is a tweener who is more of a SG rather than a PG but his size of 6’1 dictates that he will most likely play point. Most NBA teams would love to convert him to a PG much like what Larry Brown is doing with DJ Augustin in Charlotte. The one specific thing that the NBA scouts will take into consideration is a high basketball IQ which some players in NBA just don’t have. Most scouts compare Curry to a Steve Kerr/Terrell Brandon type of player but I like to think of him as an improved version of Monta Ellis.
Where would he likely go in the NBA Draft? Well, many mock drafts have him going as a lottery pick and rightfully so. Curry needs to the find the right system to uses his talent correctly or we might have a “Trajan Langdon situation” all over again. However considering the road Curry has taken, failure doesn’t seem to be an option.
The Curious Case of Stephen Curry
