Stephen Curry's time as a sixth-man will be short-lived. The Warriors guard and two-time MVP will be back in his starting role when the Golden State's second-round playoff series against the Pelicans shifts to New Orleans for Game 3 Friday.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr has made it a policy to not announce his starting lineup ahead of games this postseason _ it's become a bit of a running joke between him and us in the media seven games in _ but he slipped up in a radio interview Wednesday, admitting that Curry will start in Game 3.
He's the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA _ of course he'll start.
"Oh yeah, yeah. He'll start Game 3," Kerr told Damon Bruce of 95.7 The Game. "You don't keep a guy like that on the bench for long."
But the fact that Curry came off the bench in Game 2 is a testament to his unique, all-around greatness and provided a key insight into why the Warriors are on the prowl for a fourth-straight NBA Finals berth this June.
Before Game 2, Kerr made it clear that Curry would not be on a minutes restriction in his return after five-plus weeks sidelined with a Grade 2 sprain of his left MCL. This, along with everything else Kerr said in the build-up, made it easy to believe that Curry would be in the starting lineup for Tuesday's contest.
I'll admit, I was duped.
Curry not entering Game 2 until there was 4:20 remaining in the first quarter could have been viewed as Kerr being too cute by half. After all, we've seen that kind of rotation management before.
Perhaps it was, but the record should be set straight: coming off the bench was Curry's idea.
"He actually brought it up to me," Kerr told 95.7.
The notion was that the Warriors played so well without Curry in Game 1 that him coming off the bench would help in replicating that performance _ something Curry's teammates said was critical ahead of Game 2 and, frankly, a bit tougher to do with Curry's return. (After all, why try hard on defense when you have Stephen Curry on your team?)
A superstar _ a two-time league MVP _ asking to come off the bench in a playoff game?
This is just another example of how few peers _ if any _ Curry has in the league.
Juxtapose Curry's humility (whether it was misguided or not is another conversation) with what is happening in Oklahoma City with Carmelo Anthony _ a player who hasn't won anything but one scoring title in his 15 years in the NBA _ who in his season-ending interview was defiant to the point of delusion over his role on a underachieving team that he did little to help and plenty to hinder this season.
"I think everybody knows that I've sacrificed kind of damned near everything," Anthony said. "Sacrificed my game for the sake of the team and was willing to sacrifice anything and everything in order for this situation to work out. So it's something I really have to think about, if I really want to ... finish out my career as this type of player, knowing that I have so much left in the tank and I bring so much to the game of basketball."
Again, compare that to Curry _ a player whose ascendancy has turned the Warriors' franchise from the laughing stock of the NBA into the model organization in professional sports _ suggesting to Kerr that he comes off the bench so that the team can keep a good thing going.
This isn't new, either. Remember, the man who had just won the first unanimous MVP in NBA history and who came back too early in the 2016 playoffs because the Warriors needed him _ not because his sprained right MCL was 100 percent _ only to come up short in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, pitched Kevin Durant, in person, on coming to Oakland in the summer of 2016, and then sent text messages after the meeting was over, just to hammer home the point, telling Durant that he didn't care about being the face of the franchise or shoe sales.
Two years into this grand experiment, Curry has backed up what he's said. Despite prodigious talent, abundant success, relentless attention, and plenty of possibilities for egos to develop and clash, the Warriors' team chemistry is strong as any team's in the NBA.
How does that happen? Whenever someone asks, everyone wearing blue and gold points to Curry. You can't have an ego when the team's best player doesn't have one.
(If Curry did have one, it would have shown up Tuesday _ if I was in his lowtops in a strange Freaky Friday situation, I would have inserted myself into the game after watching three minutes of Nick Young.)
Superstars are supposed to be the most alpha of the alpha males. They're supposed to be aggressively passive-aggressive (LeBron James), exhaustingly over-aggressive (Russell Westbrook), downright abrasive (Kobe Bryant), or competitive to the point of possible mental illness (ask Kerr about the time Michael Jordan punched him).
Curry has been a one-man roundball revolution on the court, but he's breaking trends off the court, too. Humility? Deference? Reticence?
This is not the way a superstar is supposed to act.
This Warriors run has been special for dozens _ hell, hundreds _ of reasons, but don't forget at the heart of this dynastic run is Curry.
After all, could you imagine these Warriors winning two titles and working toward a third if Curry was a "typical" superstar?
