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We featured Rick Barry once this week but this clip of him discussing Stephen Curry and his old team, the Golden State Warriors, is too good to not make a YouTube Gold.
He talks a lot here about Curry’s heart and desire to be great, and how the Warriors (and San Antonio) play the game the way it is supposed to be played (he also gets a plug in for himself, saying that he was glad to see the Bay Area fans get a championship “after 40 years,” referring to the one he helped win, along with former Duke great Jeff Mullins, in 1977).
But the best part of this clip is at the beginning where he says “anyone who says they knew that Curry would be this good is lying,” although that may not be verbatim. But that’s basically what he said.
Well, we can’t say that we did but just before the draft we heard Jay Bilas on a radio show and a caller questioned Curry’s potential, arguing that he wasn’t that athletic.
Bilas paused for a second, gathered his thoughts, and said (again, possibly not verbatim) “you do realize that he’s exceptionally smart, right?”
It was a polite but very pointed comment and it was actually fairly arresting. Settled it in our mind on the spot.
And of course, time has proven him entirely correct. So maybe Barry can make an exception.