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Stephen Curry was a rookie when the Hughes brothers film “The Book of Eli” came out in January of 2010. Denzel Washington starred in this post-apocalyptic thriller about a man named Eli journeying across the violent and desolate wasteland the country had become, looking for San Francisco. Alcatraz was a safe haven where pre-war life was being preserved.
Eli had a precious item with him, one he believed would restore humanity: a Bible, the last copy on Earth, which he read every night for years. Under attack from vandals and pursued by a villain — played by Gary Oldman — who wanted to get his hands on the Bible so he could control people, Eli proved to be more than a nomad. Though humble and peaceful, he was a valiant fighter and proficient killer as well as a resourceful and innovative surviver.
Eventually, he made it to Alcatraz, albeit with a gunshot wound. The Bible was finally taken from him before he made it. Still, he completed his mission by reciting it word for word to a transcriber just before dying. The big plot twist at the conclusion of the movie? The Bible he carried was in Braille. Eli was blind the whole time.
This movie produced an ongoing debate between me and Curry. I argued Eli was not blind despite the hazed pupils revealed at the end. He opened doors with no problems, picked up items without feeling around for them, even shot birds from the sky with an arrow for dinner. No way he was blind.
But no matter how many suspect scenes I pointed out, Curry never wavered. He was convinced Eli was blind the whole time. Curry continued the debate on the court. He’d make a shot and then look at me at the scorer’s table, waving his hand in front of his face while he stared as he ran back down court. That was his way of reiterating that Eli was, indeed, blind.
And, now, it all makes sense. Not the movie, though I eventually conceded Eli was blind, but why that plot twist resonated so strongly with Curry.
Curry went 5 for 10 from 3-point range in Tuesday’s 116-102 win over the Denver Nuggets at Oracle Arena. It was his ninth consecutive game with at least five made 3-pointers. In those nine games, he has made 56 of 109 from deep. That’s 51.4 percent.
This turn-up has been a revelation. Curry went 4 for 15 from deep in a loss to Phoenix on March 10. He followed that with a 3-for-9 outing in a home nail-biting victory over Houston. At that point, he was shooting 36.6 percent from 3 after the All-Star break (48 of 131). In his first nine seasons combined, he shot 46.5 percent after the All-Star Game. He was in a legit slump.
Then, suddenly, it went away. What changed?
“I started wearing contacts,” Curry said late Tuesday, pulling his white “Ten in the Town” hat down on his head, creating an awning for his beaming eyes. “No, I’m serious.”
For all of his career, his life even, Curry has had issues with his eyes. He said he has a condition called Keratoconus, known in the ophthalmology field as KC. Technically, it’s an eye disease in which the cornea, normally a circle, progressively thins and takes on a cone shape. This distortion has given Curry what is known as an astigmatism, which is a type of error in the way the light bends when entering the eye. It doesn’t distribute the light equally to the retina and leads to blurred or distorted vision. It’s a genetic condition Curry was probably born with, though scientists don’t know how it is acquired.
Wait a second. Curry — who traveled all the way across the country to the Bay, his Bible in tow — was blind the whole time? And now he can see?
“It’s exactly that,” Curry said when asked if he feels like he has new eyes. “It’s like the whole world has opened up.”
This is the part where you borrow my take: no way he was blind.
Even before this recent hot streak, Curry had made more than 2,400 regular-season 3-pointers in his career. That’s third most in NBA history while taking the ninth-most attempts. He also has the best free-throw percentage in NBA history. Curry just passed Hall of Famer and Warriors legend Chris Mullin for fourth on the Warriors’ career points list. And that’s not to mention Curry’s ball-handling, developed by sensory overload drills with lights and tennis balls, and thread-the-needle passes.
But for those who have watched Curry over the years, you may have noticed this: he squints a lot. Sometimes, it looks like a piercing stare. Sometimes, he looks confused. But mostly, he’s developed a habit of adjusting his eyelids for clearer vision.
It is perhaps a sign of how mild his KC must be, because he could just squint and regain focus. But it is also a degenerative condition that, according to most scientists, doesn’t stop progressing until about age 40. So perhaps Curry, 31, reached a point where he needed to do something.
He said he should be wearing glasses, but he doesn’t. Once, at his annual Christmas event, he gave attendees a free visit with an optometrist and glasses if they needed them. When addressing the crowd he joked about needing to get checked out, too. He was giving a hint.
LASIK surgery is off the table for Curry. Corrective eye surgery reshapes the cornea by removing some of the tissue, making the cornea thinner. But for Curry, progressive thinning of his cornea is the problem.
So he just kept dealing with it. He became the greatest shooter ever despite an impediment. Why didn’t he get the contacts sooner?
“I had gotten so used to squinting for so long,” he said. “It was just normal.”
But after his prolonged slump — making just 33 percent of his 3-pointers over a nine-game stretch (38 for 115) — he recently gave the specialized contact lenses a try. Some people whose KC is severe enough need corneal transplant surgery or corneal collagen cross-linking. But for many, glasses or contacts are enough. They seem to be for Curry.
He is like many who don’t really know their vision is impaired until they get a dose of perfect vision. The contacts showed him what he’d been missing.
Since getting a rest day when Dallas came to town on March 23, Curry has made 32 of 59 from 3.
But the contacts aren’t the only factor, though Curry’s shooting just looks more true than it did in February. A big factor is the flow of the Warriors offense. The ball is hopping around. Kevin Durant has been a catalyst for that.
The offense is running through him a lot, as Steve Kerr leans on point-Durant. But Durant isn’t looking for his shot at the same rate he normally does. After going 9 for 25 against Dallas in a blowout loss when Curry rested, Durant has taken just 59 shots in the last five games, 22 coming in the overtime loss at Minnesota. But he’s averaging 7.6 assists and feeding his teammates like a 7-foot waiter. With Durant as a live option and looking to pass and the Warriors cutting and moving off him, it’s made life off of the ball much easier for Curry.
After the loss to Dallas, the Warriors ranked second in the league with 318.6 passes per game. Their 29.1 assists per game led the league. Since then, they’ve averaged 20 more passes and 5.4 more assists per game.
Ball movement equals motion, motion shifts the defense and creates openings while also allowing the Warriors offense to get a rhythm going. That rhythm is like caffeine to Curry’s game. He gets better looks. He knows where and when they are coming from.
His latest hot streak has him up to 43.8 percent shooting from 3, on pace for his highest percentage since his 2015-16 unanimous MVP season. It’s the second most 3-pointers he’s made in his career (340 and counting), short of only his record-destroying 402 in 2015-16.
Curry in rhythm heading into the playoffs is the best news for the Warriors. He has been the catalyst, the barometer, for the Warriors’ success during this entire run. When he is on, they are the most explosive offense in NBA history. When he is healthy and aggressive and drilling 3-pointers at an historic rate, they are unbeatable.
And that was true when he was blind. Now he can see.
― DJI, Wednesday, 3 April 2019 18:16 (five months ago) link
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