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Winning A Title Changed Stephen Curry’s NBA Legacy

By Angelo Mendoza

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Without a doubt, future Hall of Famer Steve Nash is one of the greatest point guards of all-time.

A two-time NBA MVP and 8x All-Star, Nash was one of the most prolific and decorated floor generals the past two decades. While his shooting prowess was certainly something to behold, it was his innate ability to make his teammates better through his passing, vision, and incredibly high basketball IQ that set Nash apart from his peers.

He is one of the six members of the 50-40-90 club, meaning that he was able to shoot 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from behind the arc and 90 percent from the free throw line in a single season. Plus, he’s also just one of two club members (the other being Larry Bird) to do so in more than one NBA season.

In addition, Nash is just one of two point guards ever to win multiple MVPs, the other being Magic Johnson. He’s also just one of three guards to win back-to-back MVPs, with Johnson being one of them, and the great Michael Jordan being the other.

And to top it all off, in roughly 70 years of NBA history, Nash is just one of nine players ever to have won back-to-back MVPs (others being Jordan, Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan and LeBron James).

But the one blot on Nash’s brilliant career is that he was unable to win a title, which was cut short by a lingering back injury that forced him to retire this past May.

Fast forward through the summer, and the Golden State Warriors announced that they’ve hired Nash as a part-time player development consultant, adding onto the list of things the franchise has done to best ready themselves for a title defense.

For the Warriors, there were obvious connections to Nash that made making such a move inevitable (Steve Kerr, Rick Welts, Bruce Fraser, Alvin Gentry). However, the one association to Nash that the Warriors could have never seen coming: Stephen Curry.

Curry is the reigning league MVP, and rightly so. Curry was, without a doubt, the best player on the best team, and they were the best team mostly due to the difference he made on the floor. The reason why the Warriors posted such historically great numbers was because of the leadership that Curry displayed this past season.

Though Curry has yet to become a member of the 50-40-90 club, many fans and analysts already believe Curry to be in the conversation for best shooter of all time. He may not yet be the passer that Nash was, but Curry’s creativity and basketball IQ have proven key to the Warriors’ fast paced offense.

However, the thing that sets Curry apart from other NBA greats like Nash is, of course, his ring.

While rings may not be the sole factor that determines the greatness of a NBA player, as there are a number of NBA greats that never won a ring and an even greater number of NBA players that received a ring despite being benchwarmers on exceptional teams; winning is what competition is all about, and winning it all is what professional sports is all about. To say that you are a proven winner is something that not many other people can say, and for someone like Curry — who played the biggest role in leading his team to a championship — the fact that he’s able to call himself an NBA champion has that much more significance.

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    • Because when you look at Nash, you see an NBA great that was unfortunately unable to win a ring. The same goes for guys like Allen Iverson, Karl Malone, Elgin Baylor, Patrick Ewing, John Stockton, George Gervin and Charles Barkley.

    These guys are all Hall of Famers (or future Hall of Famers) who individually set themselves apart from the thousands of players that have ever stepped foot on an NBA court. They were all, however, unsuccessful in their pursuit of a NBA title, and therefore get thrown into that select group of players who notably came up short.

    At the very least, with a ring, Curry won’t be looking back at his NBA career wishing he had won a title. He may or may not go down as the greatest shooter of all time. He may or may not prove himself to possess the vision that Nash so masterfully utilized. And he may or may not win another MVP award.

    But he did win a ring, which earns himself the honor of having his name forever written next to the words “NBA Champion,” solidified in NBA history as the man who brought the splash back to a franchise after a 40-year drought.

    And who knows? Maybe, with Nash joining the team as a consultant, the 41-year-old will finally be able to win that ring that has eluded him for so long. The difference is that Nash won’t be the one in the driver’s seat.

    It’s Curry’s time to drive, and his journey — his legacy — has just begun to be written.

    Next: Warriors Show Selflessness with Nash Hiring

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