RR: Your best friend in the world is Bryant Barr.
SC30: Yes he is.
RR: He got you into Nothing But Nets.
SC30: Yes he did.
RR: You two are in a partnership together in Slyce and they ask you out there what’s the one app you can’t live without and what did you say?
SC30: I’m not gonna repeat my answer–
RR: You said Instagram!
SC30: I thought we had talked about the Slyce portion and I just, I read my (laughs, hesitates)
Crowd: Next question!
SC30: Next question! Slyce! Slyce (louder)!!
RR: If he could’ve turned whiter, he would have.
SC30: One hundred percent.
RR: People don’t realize, you actually came with us and you were in Tanzania in absolutely the most remote parts and wonder if you could for these people to describe your hotel room.
SC30: Four walls and a bed within that and a hole in the ground for the bathroom, so it was kind of a different exp obv but pretty rewarding once you leave and kind of understand what all goes on.
RR: Do you remember the shower?
SC30: The pull lever with the hose thing.
RR: It was a combination shower-toilet.
SC30: And the bucket.
RR: Do you remember how I introduced you because the people there didn’t know who you were. I introduced myself as Barack Obama.
SC30: And I was Michael Jordan.
RR: And they went crazy because they had never heard of you.
SC30: That was perfect.
RR: Despite all this, you came there and you suffered through it, but the most amazing thing you did was during that basketball game. Do you remember what you did, wearing jeans?
SC30: I dunked.
RR: You dunked. And no one had ever seen you dunk in life.
Barr: Nine-foot rim!
SC30: That’s probably right, but we’ll leave that part of it out.
RR: So he’s making all these threes and he’s playing against local refugees. They went crazy when you made threes. What did they do when you dunked? Nothing.
(Steph gives blank stare look)
They’re like, “What was that?”
SC30: It was an ugly dunk so I don’t blame them.
RR: And you came over and said, “They don’t know how hard that was for me.” Do you remember riding to camp who was in the back of the jeep on each side of you?
SC30: Oh, you and your wife?
RR: No, two machine-gunners.
SC30: Oh, you talking about in the very back.
RR: Poor Steph was always cramped in the jeep.
SC30: When we first landed in Nirogusa that was a sight to see.
RR: The UN guy had a machine gun and the NBA had a machine gun and neither were Ralph (Walker, Warriors’ head of security), so you had no idea if you knew what they were doing. I kept watching you and it was like, “Please don’t go over that hump.”
SC30: I didn’t want to look at him. Just look straight and hopefully get there safe.
RR: Do you remember the first Nothing But Nets thing you came to with Bryant?
SC30: That was a Buzzkill event back in 2009? 2008, your first one.
RR: Wasn’t he giving haircuts?
SC30: He was giving haircuts, he had kids from all around the greater Charlotte/Davidson area raising money to have a draft of Davidson basketball players to have as their coach for a 3-on-3 event. He did all the ground work to organize that event but it was awesome to see everybody come around. Buzzkill, at the time, turned into Nothing But Nets.
RR: I always say, “Steph Curry gives three nets every time he makes a three which is like your teenage daughter giving you three nets every time she checks her phone. That is a crapload of nets. Do you realize that when you took the record from, what 268 to 402 last year?
SC30: Uh, 280-something.
RR: 280-something to 402. I did the math. It’s the same equivalent of kicking an 88-yard field goal. You’d have taken the 64-yard field goal record to 88. Does that ever freak you out?
SC30: It does, esp when people ask, “What are going to do this year?” I’m like, “I don’t know, just shoot as many as I can and hopefully I’ll make them. Last year getting to 300 was a number I thought wasn’t gonna be impossible, but extremely hard and everything would have to go right — being healthy, making shots, whatever.
RR: And you got to 300 in, like, March.
SC30: I got to 300 in February and then everybody’s talking about 400, so the expectations and the noise around the accomplishment was crazy. It’s just a blessing.
RR: Let’s talk about expectations for a second. You’ve added one of the great shooters, scorers in the league, or rather the Warriors have added a great scorer, Kevin Durant. And you already have you and Klay Thompson, and I said, “This is like adding a third breast to Kate Upton because it’s a little superfluous.”
SC30: So that was part of my answer (pointing to the TechCrunch stage). When you’re on that platform don’t tweet whatever comes to your mind.
RR: I’m saying it’s not necessarily something that we need, as Warrior fans or people who are Warrior fans. Do you really need another incredible — that’s three of probably the all-time top four three-point shooters — how are the hell is that gonna work?
SC30: It’s gonna work. It’s gonna be a huge transition, but we had such a great dynamic with the “Strength In Numbers” and the depth that we had on our team, and obviously we had to give up a lot of that to get “KD”, it’ll be a different way of going about our style. There are plenty of shots to go around, plenty of opportunities for everybody to shine and for us we have healthy egos in that we all think we’re the best player. We’re confident when we go out there, but the only real objective is to win and if we don’t win, we know what that feeling’s like now and we don’t want that feeling. It’ll work. It’ll just take some time to get into training camp to figure it out.
RR: Do you expect to take less shots?
SC30: Uh, no.
RR: Does Klay?
SC30: I did the math, though. I did some advanced analytics.
RR: Let’s hear the math. I wanna hear the math.
SC30: There’s plenty of shots to go around. Obviously when KD came, some guys left so there’s some shots. Me and Klay average a certain amount. I know what KD averaged last year in Oklahoma City, so it all fits into a full game’s worth of shots. We’ll figure it out.
RR: Are there any rebounds in your math?
SC30: Hopefully not. Hopefully no offensive rebounds because that means it’s going in.
RR: You talked about Game 7. How long was it before it stopped hurting?
SC30: It still hasn’t. I don’t think it ever will. Maybe like when we win the next one. I like how I said that. Hopefully when that happens, you forget about the motivation that it took to get there, the feeling of July 19th, 2016 (Curry obviously meant to say June 19th, which was the date of the Game 7 loss), so you just understand that this is gonna make us better. We would’ve loved to have celebrated a second one, but it’s a different different journey.
RR: Sorry, but as you lay awake some nights in that first month afterwards, just envisioning what went wrong that Game 7, is there one thing that you wish you had back, anything?
SC30: Just the last two minutes. You go in the Finals situation and it goes to a Game 7 in the last two minutes. That’s what you live for and you can, after the game, second-guess decisions you made, shots you took, and maybe think about what could I have done differently, but just watching it, just kinda lost control of the momentum. I threw a crazy pass that went out of bounds. Obviously, Kyrie (Irving) made a great shot, but we still had a chance to win and just got a little rushed. So when that situation comes back around, I like our chances.
RR: Yeah. Speaking of getting things back, did you ever get that mouthpiece back?
SC30: No. Apparently, we need to add a mouthpiece challenge to the “Three For Three” because that thing, whoever found it, sold it on eBay for an absurd amount of money for some silicon that I don’t understand why.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The Curry mouthguard sold on eBay was for approximately $3,000 and was listed as NOT being the same as the one Curry threw into the stands in Game 6 in Cleveland.]RR: But how do they know it’s yours, so they match dental imprints or how’s it work?
SC30: That’s a good question. I don’t know where that certificate of authenticity came from, but uh, yeah, I don’t know.
RR: Thank you again for all you’ve done for kids, man. Appreciate it so much.
SC30: Yes sir. Thank you very much…Slyce!!
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