As Steph Curry is looked at as a current NBA great (and perhaps a future Hall of Famer?), he is bound to face scrutiny. However, it seems he had felt that, early in his career, he was unfairly scrutinized for his shortcomings, as perceived by analysts and experts.
Underrated is a piece written by Curry that appeared in The Players Tribune. In this piece, Curry detailed his path to NBA stardom, including his inability to put on muscle and even his offer to attend Virginia Tech (his dad's alma mater) as a walk-on, something he described as a sort of "courtesy."
Aside from his coming of age, Curry singled out a piece of criticism he received from a major NBA analyst in 2009, the year he was drafted. "I remember Doug Gottlieb, who was a major draft analyst at the time, talking about how there were six other point guards in my class with a higher upside than I had. SportsCenter put up a tweet with his comment on it." Those other point guards (there were actually five mentioned in the tweet) were Ricky Rubio, Brandon Jennings, Jonny Flynn, Patty Mills, and Jeff Teague.
While he is able to look back and laugh, remarks such as these used to irritate him, as he believed them to be dismissive. "It’s hard to even describe how much comments like that bugged me," he wrote. "All this analysis that people would put out there, all these scouting reports and whatever, that kept the focus on what I supposedly couldn't do." He challenged the current method of assessing young, potential talent, stating that scouts are systematically conditioned to dismiss players "by focusing on the downsides of what guys can't do." He believes that more time should be spent "figuring out the upside of what they can [do]."
This piece accompanied his announcement for his upcoming basketball camp, The Underrated Tour. The camp will focus on high school basketball prospects that are not yet signed and are rated three stars or below. He intends to address the issue of lower rated kids missing out on opportunities to attend basketball camps due to "perceived shortcomings."
Check out the full piece, Underrated, here.
