Nevius: Stephen Curry the key to Warriors' run of success

At some point there will be look-backs at this Warriors team. Deep dives into how it was built.

There will be time spent on the signing of Kevin Durant, the replacement of Mark Jackson with Steve Kerr as head coach and the genius of harnessing volatile Draymond Green and giving him the keys to the ignition.

All perfectly valid. You can even throw in GM Bob Myers for assembling a bench that doesn’t just hold the line, but actually extends the lead.

But I think we all know who has set the tone, made the plays and convinced everyone to believe.

Steph Curry.

And when that narrative is written, it should be noted what a thunderbolt of good fortune it is to have this charming, gifted savant at the center of everything the Warriors do.

The NBA draft is a sucker’s game. Pick ’em and hope. Curry wasn’t the first choice in 2009. That was Blake Griffin, who could jump out of the gym. Hasheem Thabeet was picked before Curry - and James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn.

We can second-guess that order now, but at the time no one was saying it was ridiculous that Curry didn’t go higher. I’m guessing Golden State would have been thrilled to get Harden. But just picture the franchise with him - brooding, cranky and dominating the ball - as the centerpiece.

Instead, the team got a skinny kid with weak ankles from Davidson.

Would Curry’s water-bug moves be effective against professional defenders? Would a coach put up with the crazy, behind-the-back turnovers and casting off 3-pointers from 27 feet?

Yep.

Curry has had so many opportunities to screw this up. With the money, the attention and the hangers-on, all NBA stars do. Tristan Thompson is involved in a cheating scandal with fan-mag fav Khloe Kardashian? Really?

Meanwhile, earlier this year, Curry was seen with his wife and kids at the Museum of Ice Cream.

On the court - and this is not an original observation - Curry seems to play with a sense of joy. The NBA game is all mean mugs and hard stares, but Curry just seems to get a kick out of the game.

In the Houston series, Chris Paul knocked down a 3 and then ran to Curry, looked him in the eye and did a Curry-shimmy. There was nothing light-hearted about it. It was a challenge. How do you like that, Paul was saying.

Curry, with his mouthpiece dangling, laughed. And that was the right response. Give Paul credit. It was funny.

Curry is routinely the smallest person on the floor. Of course, that’s NBA small. He’s listed at 6-3. But even so, he can only dunk with the greatest of difficulty.

Which only makes his forays to the hoop more impressive. His shifty dribble-drives leave defenders with their feet tangled and he switches hands deftly. But still, against athletic 7-footers, making layups is not easy.

Second-year man Patrick McCaw is 6-7 and bouncy enough to sail up for put-back dunks. But he has a difficult time finishing at the rim. You see McCaw’s shot blocked and you wonder: How does Curry do it?

Everyone will concentrate on the 3s, of course. He’s an eerily effective long-range shooter. Just the simple physics are daunting: flicking the ball toward an iron ring, 25 feet away and suspended 10 feet in the air.

But it is also the timing. He makes shots at back-breaking moments, with a hand in his face. The roar from the home crowd powers the team.

In Houston in Game 7, he scored 11 consecutive points to ignite a decisive 34-point third quarter.

In the first game of the NBA Finals, LeBron James powered in for a layup and a two-point Cleveland lead with 36 seconds left in regulation.

Curry took the subsequent inbounds pass and went coast to coast, not only banking in the shot, but getting the foul. When he made the free throw the score was 107-106, which was the margin when George Hill made one of two free throws to tie the score and send the game into that critical overtime.

Now, this can’t be just a valentine to the local sports star. Curry isn’t without flaws.

He falls down constantly, begging for foul calls. He has moments of absolute mind-bending lapses in concentration, sometimes at absolutely critical times.

Against Houston, he brought the ball up court and blithely flipped the ball ahead to Green - who wasn’t looking.

The ball bounced off him and out of bounds and an exasperated Kerr called time out. C’mon, Steph.

But it is all part of the package. I like that he’s not such a goody-goody that he won’t howl an F-bomb after a critical basket. And he was smoking a stinky cigar after last year’s NBA Finals win.

But he must drive opponents nuts. This little guy, nailing shots, dribbling through everyone and winning.

Indications are that James has about had it with him. As the overtime period wound down in Game 1, Curry went in for a meaningless layup and James swooped up for a thunderous block.

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said Curry turned to James and joked, “You couldn’t let me have that one?”

To which, Windhorst said, James replied, “Get the f--- out of my face.”

Sheesh. Lighten up. Have a laugh. Be like Steph.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius.