Wednesday: Steph Curry’s greatness

The game of basketball has changed more than we realize.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Indie everage show on the ticket. Thank you
for being with us today. We had NBA games last night.
Atlanta lost to Orlando. But the good game last night
was the Warriors and Grizzlies. Warriors had a lead for
most of the game and the Grizzlies made a valiant comeback.
Joh got hurt but then returned to the game with
a springed ankle, and you could tell he was noticeably

(00:23):
limping in the entire last part part of the game.
Probably would not have been out there if it was
not a playoff game, and these are the kind of
playoff games that this is what the NBA, I think
has always been about to a certain extent. And I know,
as I said in the open today, the NBA has
always had lulls in its season where teams mailing games.

(00:43):
It's just a long marathon season and it's really really
hard sometimes to play your best and be focused your
best when you're in the middle of a season that
I would say after Christmas until All Star Break is
kind of the dog days of the basketball season, and
there's a lot of poor basketball being played. But I
just I don't like in the regular season how the

(01:04):
game is officiated. It's way too much offensive and there's
just no defense allowed when you get to the playoffs.
We had bodies on the floor last night and the
referee is like, what do you want me to do?
Blow the whistle? Well, you have been for the last
seven months, why not now? Well you don't do it
in the playoffs. It's just kind of an unwritten rule.
And obviously there's a lot of people out there that say, well,
why do you get change the rules when you get

(01:25):
to the postseason. It's because that's if you call the
foul in every play, we'd be shooting free throws the
whole game, and the players are going to play with
more intensity. I'm going to talk for a second about
Steph Curry and I have said this before, and Colin
Coward was the first person.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
That saw it.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
I know that if the NBA logo is iconic with
Jerry West, I'll say it. But if I were going
to change the logo, and I'm not, I'm never going
to change the logo. Not for Kareem, not for Magic,
not for Lebron, not for Michael, not for Kobe Bryant.
But and this was the argument that Colin had five
or six years ago. If you're gonna if you're going

(02:03):
to change the logo, the reason you would change it
is because of somebody that changed the way we play basketball,
and Steph Curry did. And Steph Curry was the first
one to shoot twenty eight foot hash mark threes and
then extended that to the to the to the logo three.
The Caitlin Clark logo three is because when she was twelve,

(02:25):
she saw Steph Curry shooting it. And what Steph Curry
has done to change the way that basketball is played
from the pros to Peewee's.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
When when I was.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Seven years old, we weren't allowed to shoot inside outside
the paint. Yeah, and most of us at that time
we were playing on eight foot baskets and if it
wasn't a layup, you couldn't shoot it. Pass the ball
until somebody gets a layup. Now you go to a
drive by a playground and you see eight year old
kids jacking up thirty footers because they may not even
be able to get it to the basket, but they're trying.
And that's the way that we play the game now.

(02:58):
There have been a lot of great shooters over the years.
Larry Bird was magnificent when he was playing in the NBA,
and a lot of people say, well, he was below
par three point shooter. That's because they only took seven
threes a game back in the day the center. The
ball went through the center almost every possession and then
they would give it back out to Bird. And Bird
was really good from the corners because that's the shortest

(03:21):
three pointer. But Bird was a good enough shooter that
if he had needed to, he would have learned how
to shoot more threes. And we were playing in this era.
I remember at the All Star Game one time, he
walked in the locker room for the three point shooting
contest and goes, which one of you blanks in here
are going to finish?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Second?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
And they all looked at him like say what. And
then he went out there and hit twenty five in
a row.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
That was the one where he was just like in
his warm up so oh yeah, his shooting shirt and
his warm up and he just he just went out.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
He literally walked in the room and said, which one
of you blanks in here are playing for a second?
And they were all looking at him like you're going down.
And he goes out and hits twenty five in a row.
Game over, I win. And he was a great shooter,
and Reggie Miller was magnificent, but he usually needed about
four screens to get a shot off. Steph does not

(04:09):
need a screen, and when he does get one, it's
pretty much like shooting a free throw. And talk about confidence.
It is a playoff game that you've got a window
so that you don't have to play a second playoff game,
and you're going to get the seventh seed, and you're
going to get the most favorable matchup by playing an
inexperienced Rockets team in the first round. And he sets
up there and as soon as he got fouled and

(04:30):
they're up three with seven seconds to go, it's game over.
Reggie Miller said, it's game over. The fans knew it
was game over. Steph knew it was game over, and
the Grizzlies do his game over because he was not
going to miss the free throws. When he misses a
free throw, it's a news story because only missed seven
percent of his free throws the whole year. I heard
a story one time where Steph Curry what he's done

(04:52):
practicing at the end of the day. He practices free
throws every single day of his life and has for
thirty years. But he will not the gym until he
hits five in a row that don't hit the rim.
If the ball hits the ram, he has to restart
the count. But he has to have five perfect free
throws in a row that hit nothing but net. If
it touches or grazes any part of the ram, he

(05:13):
starts over. That's how precise and perfect he is with
his free throw shooting he is. He did it again
last night. I thought he was. I thought he was
starting to get hurt or the thumb injury was starting
toffect his shot, and then when he needed to, when
it mattered most, he knocked down threes. The best shooter
I've ever seen and the best. I don't know how

(05:37):
we rank point guards because Steph again is not the
prototypical point guard. Point guards are like Chris Paul. We're
going to distribute for a score second and talk about
somebody that's an underrated three point shooter. That's Chris Paul.
But I look at Magic as a point guard because
he was a distributor. He wasn't a great shooter. But
Steph's a good passer and a good shooter. If we're

(05:57):
not going to probably put Curry in the in the
the Greatest of all time comparison, he's probably top twenty,
but he's not top five or not top three. But
if you were starting a team of the last fifty years,
and we would probably bost agree that the center centers
would either be Elijah One, Abdul Jabbar Chamberlain, maybe Shack.

(06:18):
We could probably break up, get a thousand people and
those four would get the most votes, and we could
talk power Forward and we'd get Tim Duncan and we'd
get Karl Malone, and we could talk the three spot
and we'd get Lebron James and Larry Bird.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
And then we can talk two spots.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
We'd get Michael and mj When we talk about I
mean Michael and Kobe. So if we get to we
talk point guards, the old old guys would say Oscar Robertson.
The next generation would say magic. There would be some
Isaiah Thomas guys in there, but Steph Curry's got to
be in the in the top five of all time
point guards.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, when you're talking individual positions, definitely, you know he's
when you're talking like greatest of all time when it's overall,
I think there would be some of the younger generation
that would probably put him in maybe even their top five,
but their top ten, because it's here, here's a quintessential

(07:14):
quote unquote little guy who's not he's not little, but
he's not a big man, you know, because we're so
enamored with the big man with the physique and things
like that of the Lebron style to where they just
look like Greek gods. Steph Curry's six two sixty three
just looks like an ever a regular, everyday guy, little,
you know, the baby face assassin.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
He is? He is that he is, Yeah, he is.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
You know when you're talking about free throws, it's funny
because like how you're when you were saying, you know,
when he misses, he kind of I remember there was
a video.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Maybe it was last year or the year before. I forget.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
It might have been Marv Alberts or somebody doing the game,
but it was like, oh, Steph Curry's made.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Eighty five in a row and then he misses. Steph Curry, legit.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
It turns around and looks at the T and T
or ESPN guys looks at.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Him and points at him, and I knew you just
j you know, because but like with Chris Paul, I mean.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Chris Paul, I don't think he shot enough free throw attempts,
but he was like ninety five percent. I think he
missed like six or seven all year.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
So but but I actually had a basketball game one
time mid nineties for Saint Mary's University. It was one
of those Christmas Day classic Christmas Week classic games where
the schools closed and nobody's there. Yeah, and literally the
only person in the stands watching, whoever you whoever Saint
Mary's was playing at the time was the janitor. He

(08:38):
was sitting there. The cart was right behind him, and
he was in the last row watching the game. And
I'm the only one in the in the entire gym talking,
And I went and I vividly remember who was at
the line. For some reason, back then, Saint Mary's had
a really good team and their point guard was Lacy
Hampton from Corpus Christy. And I said, Lacy Hampton's at
the lining shooting seventy four percent at the free throw

(08:59):
line this year, and the first one is and the
referee looked at me and went sh I'm like, dude,
I gotta call the game here.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
It's like he wanted me to be. This isn't golf,
this is basketball. Wow.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
But that you know, I'll go back to when when
DeMar Derosen was here for the Spurs. That's one of
the most I think underrated and underappreciated skills is the
free throw because.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
The people that shoot it well practice it well exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
You know, because on an off shooting night, you could
look at Steph Curry last night was nine of twenty
two overall, but it was six. It was six of
thirteen from the field, but he was thirteen of thirteen
from from from the free throw line. So if he
doesn't get those thirteen points from the free throw line
instead of thirty seven, he has twenty four. But so

(09:48):
many times we hear it, Hey, when you're struggling, you
get to the line. All it takes is sometimes is
just being able to see the ball go in. But
it's one of the most underappreciated skills and fundament there
are in this game.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I watched Becky Hammon shoot free throws after a Star's practice,
a Star shoot around at the AT and T Center
when it was the AT and t Center now Frost Bank.
This is probably two thousand and seven or eight, and
practice was over, but we were hanging around maybe twenty minutes.
I never saw her miss I mean, she's just she
just kept shooting free throws. I was like, I don't

(10:23):
remember who I was in there with, maybe as Andrew Monico.
I said, is she ever going to stop shooting? Yeah,
she ever misses, and then she'll shoot again until she misses.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's that's how you get good.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Why she's that's you know, practice makes permanent and perfect
practice makes perfect.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
So there you go.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
The only the only issue with the Warriors note is
because they are an older, much older team than the
than the Rockets, they they've got to have somebody else
step up besides it being Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, those two are going to have to carry a big,
a big time load.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
All right. Do we like whiners? I don't think we do.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
How about hot whiners that are making seven hundred and
sixty five million dollars we'll explain next.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's the Andy Everage show on the ticket