National Basketball Association

Steph Curry, now the owner of the 3-point record, has transformed the NBA game

Updated Dec. 15, 2021 12:59 p.m. ET

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By Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports NBA Writer

NEW YORK — On the one hand, this latest record set by Steph Curry is not one that would make the first line of his Hall of Fame bio.

Two-time (and counting) MVP, three-time (and counting?) NBA champion — those are the headers. Or, more to the point, those are the accomplishments we’ll cue up when, years from now, we try to put Curry’s career and greatness into context. 

Holding the NBA record for most 3-pointers made? Prior to all this week’s coverage, I’m not sure how many basketball fans even knew who held the record (Ray Allen) or what the number was (2,973). This was not exactly Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa bearing down on Roger Maris’ 61 home runs. 

Which is why — and I’m going to tell on myself here — I found myself wondering during my drive to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday for the Warriors-Knicks game why Curry’s chase for the 3-point record had become such a Big Thing. Or, rather, I found myself surprised that so many people seemed genuinely excited to see Curry set a record that, prior to this week, they had never given any thought. 

But there’s this thing with Curry. Well, really, it’s two things. The first was summarized well by Warriors head coach Steve Kerr when during his pregame news conference he was asked by a reporter about Curry’s journey from under-recruited prospect to all-time great.

"It's definitely a story that rings true to a lot of people who aren't huge basketball fans," Kerr said. "Steph appeals to everyone."

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Kerr’s right about this. People are drawn to Curry in a way we don’t often see with sports stars. It’s a different sort of fandom — the usual awe, yes, but mixed with a dose of kinship. Part of it is the smile. Part of it is he’s not a giant with an Avenger-like physique. Also, "he’s so authentic, so genuine," Kerr said after Curry did break Allen’s record in the Warriors’ 105-96 win.

But the real key is that if you boil his greatness down to its most granular and basic level, the shot that he has ridden to stardom is, in its own way, relatable. Most of us can’t dunk. Almost all of us think we can shoot. And we all think we’ve been overlooked. Rooting for Curry sort of becomes our chance to root for ourselves, and let’s be honest: There’s nothing we love more than celebrating ourselves.

But there’s another thing with Curry and his greatness and why this record is more than just another accolade to toss into the bio. Warriors forward Draymond Green put it well after the game. 

"There are very few people that are the best at said thing," he said. "Steph is the best to ever shoot a basketball." That's why, out of all his accolades, it’s this record that best symbolizes Curry, what he has done and how he’ll be remembered.

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"He’s changed the way the game is played," Kerr said. 

But even that might be an understatement. Lots of players have changed the game. Curry transformed it. Maybe more than any other player to ever pick up a basketball. It’s not that guys like LeBron and Durant aren’t all-time greats; it’s more that they were evolutions of what we had previously seen. 

Curry, on the other hand, was something different. He was — and still is — new. It’s probably why so many GMs were wary of selecting him back in the 2009 draft, when he fell to the Warriors at No. 7. There was no way to imagine what he could be because we had never seen it before. It would've been like explaining gravity to someone before Isaac Newton.* 

*On a related note: I reached out Tuesday to former Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn, who passed on Curry twice and used that draft’s fifth and sixth picks on point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn. I wanted to know how Kahn has processed this week.

"I would be happy to talk to you just as soon as you talk to the Clippers (Blake Griffin), Memphis (Hasheem Thabeet), Sacramento (Tyreke Evans) and especially Washington, which traded the No. 5 pick to me straight up for Randy Foye and Mike Miller and could have drafted Curry fifth," Khan texted back.

Compare footage of today’s game to that from as recently as 2000, and it looks like two different sports. Think of it like this: The NBA introduced the 3-point line in 1979. That year, the league leader (Brian Taylor of the San Diego Clippers, for those wondering) finished the regular season with 90 3-pointers. Curry surpassed that number weeks ago. There could very well come a time when we sort NBA history into two different eras and classify everything prior to Curry’s arrival the way we do numbers from before the 1976 NBA-ABA merger.

"I never wanted to call myself the greatest shooter until I got this record," Curry said after the game Tuesday. "Now I feel comfortable saying that — and hopefully pushing that to a number that nobody will reach."

There are 14 players who have won multiple MVPs. Most of them have won multiple rings. But only one person holds the record for most career 3-pointers. 

That record is singular. So is the player who owns it. 

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of "Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports." Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.

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