Will Stephen Curry’s influence really hurt the game?

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Stephen Curry Shooting the Basketball with Range

Steph Curry’s emergence has really inspired and influenced a ton of kids all around the world. The three-point shot has become the slam dunk and that has to be credited to the former MVP. A couple months back, Curry’s former coach, Mark Jackson had some words about Steph that ruffled some feathers.

“To a degree, he’s hurt the game,” Jackson said on ABC’s telecast. “And what I mean by that is I go into these high school gyms, I watch these kids and the first thing they do is run to the three-point line. You are not Steph Curry. Work on your other aspects of the game. People don’t think that he’s just a knock-down shooter. That’s not why he’s the MVP. He’s a complete basketball player.”

Where Jackson went wrong was his statement saying that “he has hurt game” because I don’t see that as being true, but besides that, everything else he said was 100% correct. I’ve seen it firsthand coaching young travel teams. All the kids want to do now-a-days is jack up threes instead of trying to get to the basket or work on some other part of their game. And not even regular threes from the three point line either; we’re talking shooting a couple feet back from the three point line as well. I’ve browsed the internet and came across videos where young players are just toying with the ball and channeling their inner Steph, launching from deep.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BB6EA-vMjq1/?taken-by=dribble2much

https://www.instagram.com/p/BB6Db6rsjp0/?taken-by=dribble2much

To blame Curry for this isn’t fair because he’s just playing his game. But where the ownership needs to occur is with the coaches of these young players. The message has to be, it’s okay to admire Steph and how he plays the game but you need to perfect other aspects of the game, including your shot and fully understand the apsects of shot selection before you can get a green light like Steph has. If a player is on the court during a game, shooting 5 feet beyond the three point line and the coach allows it then all the blame is on that coach.

Steph Curry’s influence is definitely having a lot of impact on these kids and there’s no question there but I believe the power is in the hands of the youth coaches. They have the say in what they will allow and how they’ll coach and that will ultimately help or hurt the game.

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