Some additional context about Curry in college: he was great, we just didn’t know how well the talent translated. Our conference would get maybe 2-3 games a season against top tier teams (UNC, Duke) and it would always be a blowout. The player of the year was a guy named Kyle “Sir” Hines at Greensboro who was a 6’6" (1.98m) center setting all sorts of historical records. And he even did well against those top caliber teams. And Curry was also setting records, but I think Kyle graduated first and then didn’t even make an NBA roster and didn’t do well in the Summer Leagues.

So we expected Steph Curry to end up somewhere in that range, maybe he would make a roster but probably not have a long career because he was smaller and didn’t have great handles for a point guard. A lot of things broke open for Steph at the right time, from the NBA changing to an easier scoring softer rim and relaxing defensive rules, to teams money balling the sport and figuring out that 3 points at 40% was much easier than 2 points at 60%. And even then it was a difficult choice for Golden State to stick with Curry those first six seasons, over Monta Ellis. They gambled, and it didn’t work until they changed coaches to the first time coach Steve Kerr, which tells how well Golden State was respected. And the rest is history.

Kyle Hines ended up in Europe and had a very good multi-decade career there.