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Steph Curry is seemingly ageless when he’s on the court.
He’s turning 39 this season, but he still makes defenders look like they’re trudging through mud and he’s always a hairpin trigger away from going on unconscious scoring sprees.
While Curry hasn’t specified how much longer he wants to play, his longtime trainer didn’t hesitate when asked how long he could operate at this level.
“The window for Stephen is going to stay open for as long as he wants it to stay open,” Brandon Payne told the California Post. “He’s done all the foundational work that he’s needed to do to allow himself to play at an extremely high level for as long as he wants to. It’s not close [to closing], to be honest with you.”
Curry, however, raised eyebrows last season while talking about a “new normal” after missing 27 straight games because of a balky knee. He also made pulses quicken when he tweaked his right ankle during the team’s open practice in San Francisco on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said “he was fine” and will be available for the team’s season-opener against the Lakers on Wednesday.
Considering players entering the league are nearly half his age, it’s obvious that he’s going to have to keep tweaking his game to remain atop the NBA for the foreseeable future.
Behind the scenes, Payne spent the offseason fine-tuning Curry’s drills to make sure he maximizes his longevity while keeping his skills as sharp as ever.
Curry, who earlier in his career was known for constantly moving and averaging some of the most miles of any player during games, now does far less running when he trains.
But his drills are more cerebral than ever, aimed at ensuring his decision-making and read-and-react abilities are so elite that the game moves in slow motion for him while inducing whiplash for everyone else.
Instead of sprinting around the court, Curry now operates in a smaller zones, where Payne and his crew will flash numbers, colored tennis balls and colored paper that each corresponds with different moves or space-creating options.
Curry will have a fraction-of-a-second to process and react, just as he does against defenses in games. Curry is no longer running 5Ks every workout, but his sessions with Payne are as challenging as ever.
“I’d even argue from a mental standpoint that it’s much more difficult than anything he’s ever had to do in the past,” Payne said.
It’s working for Curry, who became the oldest point guard in NBA history to start on an All-Star team last season. He averaged 26.6 points on 46.8% shooting from the field and 39.3% from beyond the arc.
Curry is still arguably the most exciting player in the league. When he gets going, there’s nothing like it. It’s like witnessing magic. It’s as though he possesses a secret power to magnetize the ball to the bottom of the net.
In his fifth game back from missing two months because of his ailing knee, Curry played a do-or-die play-in game against the Clippers. He shined with 35 points, including shooting 7-for-12 from beyond the arc. With 50.4 seconds left and the score tied at 117-117, he made a stepback 29-foot 3-pointer to help lead his team to a win.
Payne believes Curry has been consistently great for so long because of his ability to adapt.
He pointed out that the game has evolved from players running from sideline to sideline to being more free-flowing and open. Through it all, Curry has found ways to create space for himself.
He used to masterfully take advantage of two or three screens to shake defenders. Now he has to open himself up, so he has learned to take to use the space behind him as a tool to dance around opponents.
“He constantly finds way to generate offense,” Payne said. “They’ve guarded him so many different ways. He’s seen so many strategies. He’s seen so many types of help. He’s seen so many different types of bodies. And he always has an answer. That to me is what’s so impressive about him.”
After the Warriors were eliminated in their second play-in game in April, Curry said he wants to play “multiple” seasons before he retires. But Curry acknowledges that he’s now extra careful during workouts to minimize pounding on his joints even though he said nothing is structurally wrong with his knee. And Kerr made it clear that Curry won’t be playing in all back-to-backs this season, advising fans to “be mindful” of the schedule.
When Payne was asked if fans should be concerned that he’s operating under a “new normal,” he laughed that off.
“It’s no different than anyone else who’s aging a little bit,” Payne said. “You’ve got new normals. Again, you have to take the information that’s being presented to you and adjust what you do based off the information. So, I think maybe more has been made of that comment than maybe should have.”
This much is for sure: The rules around longevity are being rewritten by guys like Curry and the 41-year-old LeBron James, who’s the only NBA player in history to reach season 24.
Payne believes they share something in common that allows them to compensate for the effects of age: Their basketball IQ.
“Both of those guys, from an IQ standpoint, they’re AI on a level that we haven’t seen before,” Payne said. “They are the AI of basketball.”
As for Curry, he spent another summer pouring himself into being at his best.
Behind the scenes, Payne sharpened his skills in new ways, helping to make sure the greatest shooter of all time stays atop the mountain for as long as he wants.
The goal is simple.
“Keep the game slow in his eyes,” Payne said. “So he’s playing faster than everybody else because of his decision-making and his processing speed is so good.”