You Need to Hear the Full Story Behind Steph Curry's Cigar Smoking at the NBA Finals

Steph Curry shared the story behind the cigar he smoked on live TV during an interview on Monday night.

Steph Curry smokes a cigar after winning the 2017 NBA Finals.
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Image via Getty/Exra Shaw/Staff

Steph Curry smokes a cigar after winning the 2017 NBA Finals.

It’s not all that uncommon to see an NBA player smoking a cigar to celebrate an NBA Finals victory. Michael Jordan was often pictured holding a cigar in some of the most iconic shots of him celebrating his numerous Finals wins.

But it was a little bit strange to see Steph Curry puffing away on a cigar on live TV after the Warriors beat the Cavaliers on Monday night to win their second NBA title in three years. We didn’t necessarily see Curry as the kind of guy who would light up a cigar, and we definitely didn’t see him as the kind of guy who would do it right out in public on TV. But he sat down for an interview on NBA TV with the cigar shortly after Game 5 of the Finals ended and proceeded to conduct the entire interview alongside his teammate Klay Thompson with the cigar in his mouth.

Steph Curry casually smoking a cigar on air with NBA TV pic.twitter.com/VD6bNxDgkD

And as it turns out, there was actually a good reason for Curry’s cigar smoking. As he explained during his NBA TV interview, he bought the cigar and had it all ready to go last year when the Warriors had a 3-1 Finals lead over the Cavaliers. But of course, LeBron James and Cleveland staged a huge comeback and ended up winning that series, which prevented Curry from pulling out the cigar as part of a celebration. Instead, he handed it off to a friend and told him to give it back to him in a year after he earned it by rebounding from the devastating 2016 loss to win a title in 2017.

"I told one of my close friends to save this for a year from now to be able to enjoy the process and journey," Curry said. "I’ve been waiting a whole year to smoke this."

You can watch Curry smoking his cigar in the clip above. Technically, there’s no smoking allowed inside Oracle Arena, but we doubt anyone complained.

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