Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry attempts a shot from near the tunnel at Oracle Arena after shooting practice, before facing the Miami Heat in Oakland on Wednesday, February 12, 2014. (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)

Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry can pass, too (w/video)

PHIL BARBER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The numbers support Vogel's observation. Curry went into All-Star weekend averaging 9.1 assists; only the Los Angeles Clippers' Chris Paul, considered one of the great distributors of his generation, had a higher figure, and Paul has been out with a separated shoulder since early January.

It qualifies as news when you consider the scouting reports on Curry in his final year at Davidson College.

Here's one from NBADraft.net: "Although he's playing point guard this year, he's not a natural point guard that an NBA team can rely on to run a team."

And another from Bleacher Report: "His first step leaves much to be desired, and it more than likely will mean that Curry will have problems beating NBA points off the dribble. ... He probably is never going to end up being a star in the league because of a lack of explosiveness."

Not to razz these sources. A lot of NBA teams had Curry rated as a marginal starter. The problem, they felt, was that he wasn't athletic enough to dominate at shooting guard (or 2 guard, in basketball parlance), and wasn't a good enough ball handler to develop into a true point guard (or 1).

That didn't make sense to a lot of longtime Curry watchers. His coach at Davidson, Bob McKillop, told everyone who would listen that the kid was a phenomenal playmaker. And Curry showed flashes of that with the Warriors, right from the start. Golden State coach Mark Jackson said he covered a Davidson-Duke game as a TV analyst and came away convinced that Curry was "an outstanding point guard." Steve Kerr, a combination guard during his 15 NBA seasons, got a similar feeling.

"When I was GM at Phoenix, I watched him play in Anaheim against UCLA, when he was at Davidson," said Kerr, now an analyst for TNT. "You could tell he was three moves ahead of everybody else, and just had the feel - however you want to describe it. He just had the feel for the game that you look for from a point guard. He reminded me a lot of Steve Nash."

The Warriors' sharpshooter

If people didn't always notice that ability, it was because they were blinded by Curry's legendary shooting prowess. He set an NBA record last year with 272 3-point field goals, and did it while converting 45.3 percent from the arc, and unthinkable degree of accuracy for someone launching 600 shots. He's scoring 24.3 points per game this year.

Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant, a pretty decent marksman himself, tweeted earlier this year that Curry is the best shooter ever.

"The special thing about him is that he's a threat no matter what," teammate Andre Iguodala said. "There's not too many shooters that can shoot the ball that well three different ways - off the dribble, catch-and-shoot, off inbounds."

Curry, despite his slight frame - he's listed at 6-foot-3, 185 pounds but seems lighter - also has developed a deadly floater in traffic. So it represented a leap of faith, if not a huge gamble, when the Warriors made Curry their regular point guard this season.

Starting to really run the point

They may have called Curry a 1 during his first 2? years in Golden State, but it was usually hard to sort out roles with him and another scoring guard, Monta Ellis, sharing the backcourt. That's one reason the Warriors were willing to trade Ellis, their most dominant player at the time, to Milwaukee midway through the 2011-12 season.

Curry handled the ball a lot last year, but commonly moved to shooting guard when veteran Jarrett Jack came off the bench. This year, the Warriors have allowed Curry to run the offense, and he has flourished.

"I felt like I've been able to see the game differently from start to finish when I know I have the ball in my hands, be able to make plays and decisions and try to be aggressive," he said. "So I've gotten real comfortable in that position."

He couldn't have a better mentor than Jackson, who ranks third in NBA history with 13,334 assists, collected over 17 seasons.

Unleashed as a playmaker, Curry has demonstrated not only an ability to dribble effectively to his left or right, but the rarer talent of passing equally well with either hand. His court vision is sometimes uncanny.

"I see total improvement," said Curry's father, Dell, a retired NBA 3-point specialist and current Charlotte Bobcats announcer who says he watches just about all of his son's games on DVD. "I see confidence, more leadership. He's just seeing the floor. He's much more aggressive on offense now, and he's improved defensively as well."

The turnover bug still bites

It helped that Stephen Curry didn't have to spend last summer rehabbing. He has a history of rolling his right ankle and has undergone two surgeries, one to repair torn ligaments in the joint and the other to clean up scar tissue. Curry has been almost entirely injury-free in 2013-14.

He does have one lingering defect in his game, though: turnovers. Going into the All-Star break, Curry had turned over the ball 188 times, more than any other NBA player.

"It is a priority, for sure," Curry said. "I have the ball in my hands a lot, so I've got a lot of decisions to make. My turnovers are gonna be higher than they were last year just for that reason. But like coach just mentioned, the kinds of turnovers is what you gotta focus on. ... the careless ones, the ones that just gift them points, are the ones that you gotta cut down. I think I've done a better job of that in the last month, and hopefully that trend continues as we get further in the season."

Jackson suggested Curry loses focus occasionally. Kerr believes he just needs more experience, more trial and error.

"The thing with Steph is he's a gunslinger, and you don't want to take that away from him," Kerr said. "You don't want to put a box over him. You want to let him play, because he's a brilliant playmaker."

Curry's lapses in ball protection have been accompanied by a decrease in his long-range shooting accuracy. Last year, he hit 45.3 percent of his 3-point attempts. This year, he's at 40.2 percent, the lowest mark of his career.

Curry admitted recently that handling the ball is more taxing than working for open shots without it. Some wonder if he's being overburdened.

"When the Warriors were playing their best, especially last year, is when Jarrett Jack came in at 1 and moved him over to 2," said Hall of Fame guard Reggie Miller, another TNT analyst. "Because now, most shooting guards are not adept at really guarding a point guard at the shooting guard position. That's exactly what Steph brings to the table."

What's the best thing for Curry?

If some question whether making Stephen Curry a point guard is best for the Warriors, you might legitimately flip the question: Is it best for Curry in the long run?

Miller says being a "jack of all trades" works to Curry's benefit. His current backcourt partner, Klay Thompson, thinks Curry may become "a set-up guy" far down the road, but should be encouraged to score at will now.

Of course, it's possible we all spend too much time defining whether Curry is a 1 or a 2. Perhaps he's a hybrid of both. Perhaps he's something altogether different. And when he's filling up the basket and setting up teammates at this rate, maybe it doesn't really matter what we call him.

"When he's scoring 30, he doesn't look like a point, but then when he has 12 assists, he looks like a point," said Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who played the position for 13 NBA seasons. "I don't know. I just think he's a heck of a basketball player, and he's doing a hell of a job every night."

(You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.)

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