How Curry Changed the Game
Joy, tenacity, and constant motion
The 1994 Houston Rockets were the first NBA team to make 400 3s in a season. In the 2016 season, Steph Curry made 402 by himself. This Ruthian feat shattered the previous individual record—set by Curry in 2015—by 116 3s, but it's merely the tip of the iceberg. In a sport governed by giants who bend the limits of gravity, Curry somehow dominated at just 6-foot-2 with an average vertical leap.
No one Saw it Coming
When the NBA introduced the 3-point line in 1980, it had almost no immediate effect. “We don't need it,” legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach huffed at the time. Most coaches viewed it as a gimmick, instead of another strategic lever to pull. The year Curry was born, 1988, was the first time a player made 100 3s in a season, just over one make per game. Thirty percent of teams failed to hit 100 three-balls that year. In the early days, players and coaches treated the 3-point line like a pop-up ad.
Part of the hesitancy was a fixation on field goal percentage. A 50% 2-pointer was viewed as a superior option to the 40% 3-pointer because 50 is greater than 40. Today, every kid knows that a 40% 3 is equivalent to a 60% 2 because of the extra point. Back then the lower raw percentages camouflaged the value of the 3. George Gervin, who scored more points than anyone between 1977 and 1987, once called it “the worst shot in basketball,” because the best 3-point shooters “only” make around 40% of their attempts.
“The deep 3 was not only a countermeasure for smaller players, but an adaptation for all players to stretch defenses across a larger area, completely changing the spacing of the game.”
Another reason it was slow to take off is that no one practiced the shot. Before the line, shots from the outside were simply less valuable, so players usually tried to forage closer to the hoop. That brought them into traffic, where most prolific scorers would jump as high as they could, bring the ball way above their head, and release a shot at their highest point. The idea was to create vertical space above the defense and shoot over a shot blocker. Some of the most iconic shots of yesteryear relied on this style of shooting, from Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant.
Larry Bird was another high-release shooter, and at 6-foot-9 he could launch it over most defenders, but his first coach wasn't a fan of the 3. Under Bill Fitch, Bird attempted just 203 total triples from 1981 to 1983, before new coach K.C. Jones encouraged the shot more. Under Jones, Bird shot a splendid 41 percent from downtown between 1985 and 1988, netting more 3s than anyone in the league over that stretch. Still, he only made 326 of them across four seasons, because strategic innovation was stale. There wasn't enough new blood for the 3-point shot to take off within a decade.
Inventing the new Style
In 1995, the league made the 3 too enticing to resist, shortening the line to just 22 feet. Suddenly, league-wide 3-point attempts jumped by 50 percent, ushering in a two-decade stretch where teams took 3s, but never really stretched the shot to its full potential. Some skilled guards like Chauncey Billups or Steve Nash would occasionally fire pullup 3s off the dribble, but nothing like we see today. A number of rotation players never thought about a 3, decent shooters rarely shot them, and many volume 3-point shooters in the '90s and '00s were spot-up specialists.
“Every kid knows that a 40% 3 is equivalent to a 60% 2 because of the extra point.”
Dell Curry, Steph's father, was a specialist. At around 6-foot-4, Dell's weapon of choice was a silky smooth shot without a huge jump, opting for a quick flick of the wrist to surprise shot blockers instead of a maximum vertical leap to shoot over them. Dell's size meant he still had to be selective with his shots. He still converted over 40 percent from behind the arc during his career, and when he retired in 2002, was 10th all-time in 3-pointers made.
Steph entered high school at just 5-foot-6 and he needed a way to shoot over defenders. Steph adopted, then slowly perfected, Dell's fluid, single-motion shot, transferring the energy from his legs into a quick release just above his right eye. The final version belongs in the Louvre: he briefly bent his legs, then, as his knees straightened to jump, he simultaneously moved the ball upward, releasing the shot just after he left the floor. According to Sportradar, the typical release height of a Curry jumper is just over 8-feet off the ground, nearly a foot lower than LeBron James's, and a far cry from Kevin Durant's shot height of 9-feet 7-inches. Instead of hunting for the highest possible release point, Curry opted for a hair-pin trigger and more power from his legs.
Steph used that power to extend his range, shooting 3s from way behind the line. Before Curry, most 3-point shooters looked for the shortest 3-point shot, right behind the 23-foot 9-inch line. With Curry's shot powered by his legs, he was dangerous from three, six, or even ten feet behind the stripe. These shots were historically unheard of, but Steph could make them with video-game precision. In 2016, Curry attempted 219 3s from 27 to 40-feet away, draining 44 percent of them. The rest of the league made that shot just 24 percent of the time. Suddenly, little guys didn’t need to pass like Steve Nash or possess Allen Iverson's speed. They could create space on a valuable shot by catapulting deep 3s with a lower, quicker release. Trae Young's release height is just above seven-and-a-half feet, and he's taken more than 300 27-footers per year during his career, making 34 percent of them. That's the equivalent of a 51-percent 2-pointer.
Following Curry's lead, high schoolers started regularly bombing deep 3s. Caitlin Clark captivated women's basketball by launching from the half-court logo. Coaches started spacing players 30-feet away so defenders would have to cover more ground to contest a shot. In 2016, excluding Curry, the NBA made 747 of those 27-foot shots. By 2024, that number had ballooned to 3,658, with the league now shooting them at nearly 33 percent.
The deep 3 was not only a countermeasure for smaller players, but an adaptation for all players to stretch defenses across a larger area, completely changing the spacing of the game. Suddenly the paint wasn't as crowded, making shots near the hoop more effective. Passers had better sight lines. Big men had space to leap (and land) for lobs. Almost overnight, the revolution arrived.
Leading the arms race
By the time Curry ascended in the mid-2010s, the NBA was smarter than ever. Tracking cameras were installed in every arena for the 2013-14 season to collect a mountain of data. Every team integrated analytics and the Internet proliferated Xs and Os tactics from other leagues at warp speed. Teams were slowly realizing the value of the 3-pointer and the spacing it provides.

But Curry was basketball's Oppenheimer, the league’s St. Sebastian. He supercharged the timeline with that record-breaking 2016 season. In the ensuing four years, NBA 3-point attempts skyrocketed by 41 percent as teams stacked lineups with more and more shooters. Lumbering big men, once valued for their massive vertical prowess near the basket, became defensive liabilities chasing him around on the outside. Teams needed more speed and newer coverages following Curry's blueprint. He demanded his own set of rules. Steph spawned jargon like “gravity” to capture how he pulled defenders right out of the play. Teams trapped him at half court, double-teamed him without the ball, and even went to a “box-and-1”. Others shadowed him with a single dedicated defender while four other defenders zoned up in case he entered their space. This required more defensive range and more switching, hallmarks of NBA defenses today.
Back in 2014, teams weren't programmed to cover his long range ICBMs. The Warriors weren't necessarily programmed to play that way either. In 2015 new coach Steve Kerr implemented a motion offense built around Curry's perpetual movement. He encouraged more deep 3s, which saw Steph make 3.9 triples every 36 minutes he played that year.
“Steph spawned jargon like ‘gravity’ to capture how he pulled defenders right out of the play.”
In the playoffs, Curry pushed that to 4.3 makes per 36, but there was still another gear to find. In 2016, with Kerr's prodding, Steph sank more shots from at least five feet behind the line than the next four league-leaders combined! He tallied an unimaginable 5.4 3-pointers every 36 minutes, because if defenders sagged off his dribble, he'd snap off a deep 3 before they knew what hit them. If big men forgot to jump out on a high screen, he'd rain fire from 30 feet away. His range, speed of release, and perpetual motion broke traditional defenses.
Curry's shooting style was so groundbreaking that his incredible ball handling, ambidextrous rim finishing, and wonderful touch on 2-point shots were almost afterthoughts. Those additional counters made him the only unanimous MVP winner in NBA history, and made him the only player to lead the league in scoring volume and efficiency with an average of 30.1 points per game with a true shooting percentage of 67 percent in 2016.
Before Curry, the highest value real estate on the floor was the area in front of the rim. But Steph showed everyone that an elite 3-point shooter could match the efficiency of the best players near the hoop, only across a much larger area of the court. Defenses couldn't just wall off the basket area, they had to chase Curry behind a line that spans about 75 feet around the court. He took the game from bluetooth to wifi. He did it with an absolute sense of joy and tenacity.
Yet, for the first 30 years of the 3-point line, it wasn't clear that anyone could shoot like that, let alone should. The idea of moving farther away from the rim and shooting from closer to the floor went against six decades of NBA DNA. Curry was basketball's black swan, and he changed the game forever.