Steph Curry is one the most popular NBA players currently. He is a two-time MVP and the only NBA player to win MVP unanimously. These accolades came surprisingly for Steph as a draftee coming out of Charlotte’s Davidson College.
Well, Bleacher Report is reporting that these accolades for Steph Curry came at a price. Reportedly, other NBA superstars cannot stand Steph, including Russel Westbrook:
According to Marcus Thompson II, author of The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry, LeBron James, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook are among the players who dislike the Golden State Warriorsstar, per Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead.
As Thompson explained on McIntyre’s podcast, Curry looked up to James and the two were close until he “challenged LeBron’s status,” which has led to friction between the two.
“[Curry] leapfrogged a whole lot of people,” Thompson noted. “There’s a whole lot of people who never got the adoration Steph gets. … They don’t like that. Players who were probably Hall of Famers [were saying] ‘Nobody ever anointed me like this.'”
Paul and the rest of the Los Angeles Clippers also disliked the Warriors taking over in the Western Conference when they were “next in line to win a championship.”
“That’s another relationship where [Curry] was like, ‘Oh, I look up to you,’ and suddenly there is this disdain versus Steph. There’s a lot of those.”
Rumor has it Steph and LeBron were buddies, before Steph beat LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA Finals.
Mashable writes:
“There’s a thing with he and LeBron that’s a little weird,” Thompson said in a radio hit with The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre. “There was a time when LeBron and Steph were big brother and little brother and LeBron was like a mentor.”
Indeed, James used to openly root for Curry when Curry was starring at Davidson. But Thompson says the relationship changed as Curry grew from a lovable NBA underdog into one of the league’s titanic forces. Here’s more from Thompson’s interview with McIntyre.
He was a big fan of Steph, went to games at Davison, and even when [Curry] got to the NBA, they had moments where LeBron was looking at him like, ‘wow’ and then Steph kind of challenged LeBron’s status. The part that’s odd for Steph – why does that mean there has to be beef between us? He loves LeBron and respects LeBron, and he’s like, ‘because the outside world is pitting us together, why do you and I have to now have this disdain between us, I thought we were cool? … that’s the question that’s in Curry’s mind and Curry’s camp. Why do you not like me when all I did was basically respect everything you did, and follow the model you carried out? … it’s not just with LeBron … Steph wants to be accepted by all these guys. This is what he worked for. For [them] to say, ‘You’re one of us.’ It seems like they don’t want to give that to him.
Men can be haters too.
Jealousy. They feel like things have been handed to Steph when that’s really not the case.
Colorism goes beyond black women. And that’s all I have to say on this.
Cosign. I’ve been noticing this for a while.
To a lot of people, Steph just blew up out of nowhere. People just weren’t expecting it. Even to this day, his jersey is the highest selling. Little kids want to shoot 3’s and be like him. But LeBron and everyone else should stop being petty because they are great too. There’s enough room for all of them.
It’s always funny to see men be so petty and catty towards each other because they swear only women have those traits.
How silly. There’s room for all of them to shine and always has been.
I like Steph. I don’t understand all the hate he gets.