“That’s a Bad Shot”: Golden State Warriors Coach Reveals Difficulty in Coaching Stephen Curry at the Beginning

A lot of players have impacted the game of basketball. But very few have changed the way it is played. Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, and most recently Stephen Curry are some players who have left their mark on the game. Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr made an appearance on 95.7 The Game and talked about how Curry changed the game.

“He changed my understanding of what was a good shot and what was not,” Kerr said. “The first couple of months that I coached, Steph, half the shots that he took I could hear my old coaches voices ringing in my head saying, ‘That’s a bad shot.‘”

Kerr was a three-point specialist himself and ranks first on the all-time three-point field-goal percentage list. But Kerr only averaged 1.8 attempts from three per game. That is over four times lesser than Curry’s 8.2 attempts per game.

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Kerr continued, “And there’s a semi-famous clip of Steph dribbling through the entire Clippers defense and then shooting a fadeaway 28-footer and they showed me on the sidelines putting my hands on my head… that was probably the last time I ever put my hands on my head when Steph took one of those shots.”

“That was probably two or three months into my first season coaching and it just took that long to realize, okay these are actually good shots.  Because they were never good shots for anybody else who had ever played the game,” Kerr said. “So, you’re right. Steph has changed the game for everybody at every level.”

When Curry entered the league in 2009, he was attempting almost 5 three-pointers a game. That number has gone through the roof in recent years, with him averaging 11.7 attempts in the 2018-19 season. To keep up with his onslaught from beyond the arc, other teams have also sought to shooting more threes.

Back in 2009, the New York Knicks averaged the most three-point attempts in the league, with 28. In the 2019-20 season, the Houston Rockets have the most three-point attempts in the league with 44. That is almost 50% of the total shots that the Rockets take. James Harden contributes to almost one-third of those attempts.

Because of Curry and his splash brother Klay Thompson, a lot of the upcoming generation of players have changed their game. The main weapon in their arsenal is now the three-point.