Stephen Curry is lethal at every kind of 3-pointer | Signature Shots

steph

curry

is probably the greatest three point shooter of all time, so you know what his

signature

shot is, but what makes

curry

so special is his unprecedented combination of volume and efficiency, he takes a ton, he makes a ton and does it in many different ways. curry for three, yes, a kaboom of three curry as a shooter, Curry is prolific, accurate and dynamic, to the point that he redefined how NBA offenses work. He can beat you with catches and threes on dribble 3s and fast break 3s. His numbers are crazy in each one. category, but let's start with the old catch-and-shoot variety In general, about 80 percent of NBA three-

pointer

s are assisted catch-and-shoot attempts and guys like Kyle Korver, Klay Thompson and Steve Kerr have made careers relying exclusively on these types of

shots

, but While Curry thrives in many different ways, he is downright deadly as a catch-and-shoot threat.

Since the league added its player tracking system in 2013-14, we have been able to look at shooting percentages in different types of three-point

shots

and well, Curry has done it. he put up absurd numbers in the catch-and-shoot category over the past seven seasons; he has made 926 of 2,031 catch-and-shoot 3-

pointer

s during that time, which translates to 45.6 percent, the highest mark among the 116 shooters who have attempted at least 1,000 catch-and-shoots. triples in that period of time better than Korver, better than Reddick and yes, even better than his teammate Splash Brother Clay Thompson. Opponents are rarely foolish enough to leave Curry open, but he's a nightmare to defend even when he doesn't have the ball in his hands. steve kerr took over the warriors in 2014, the biggest change he made on offense was playing more against the big guys, this change unlocked curry in part because he became more of an off-ball threat that weaved his way through defenses rivals looking for space to shoot on the field.

Kerr on the perimeter, who knows a thing or two about knocking down threes, designed sets like this for Curry to open up catch-and-shoot looks on the edges, seems obvious now, but in 2014 this was groundbreaking in the Mark Jackson era, Curry was more of a traditional choice. The curse of the "and-roll" point guard broke loose and set the record books on fire by introducing more player and ball movement into the Warriors' offense. Atlanta gives Harrison Barnes a spin. This time he misses a defender that the Kerr era dubs have always had great. Passing greats like Andrew Bogut and David Lee, but Draymond Green has been a revelation as a playmaker, him appearing in that role really allowed the Warriors to let Curry and Thompson run free.

It should come as no surprise that no one helped Curry catch and shoot threes. more than draymond green and it's not close draymond has assisted on 266 steph, catches and shoots threes since 2013-14, more than double that of the great andre iguodala, who ranks second with 131, is still as incredible as curry in situations of catch and shoot. what really sets him apart is his ability to create his own shots from downtown it used to be rare for the best shooters in the game to dribble into their own threes now it's commonplace what happened with curry that's what in steve's early seasons Kerr's Warriors won a lot of games and Curry set the single-season three-point record on two different occasions by complementing those catch-and-shoot looks with unprecedented numbers of unassisted three-pointers as he entered his prime.

Curry integrated his incredible ball-handling skills with his lightning-fast release to generate unassisted perimeter three-pointers became Curry's unique finishing move and also became the fastest-rising shots in the league. Curry's crossover 3-pointer was wonderful to watch in the moment, but history will remember him as Curry changing professional basketball forever. It just wasn't immediate. high school steph had to lift the ball to generate power, but his renewed form made him a Deepa Davidson sensation in the first three years of her career. Curry battled injuries and never attempted more than 380 three-pointers in a season. He was always great. The shooter don't get me wrong, but the volume wasn't there.

Teammates assisted on about 75 percent of Curry's three-pointers in his first three years. In other words, he was a fairly traditional three-point threat with a heavy diet of catch-and-shoot attempts. changed in his fourth season, the start of a five-year streak in which Curry led the NBA in three-point attempts each year and really started to mix in more dribble attempts. Curry made a record 272 three-pointers during the 2012-13 season. and a remarkable 39 of them, 105 of those trees were unassisted, it was a sign that the 24-year-old was paving his own path to greatness. Curry couldn't have broken Ray Allen's single-season record of 269 without all those unassisted threes, and he couldn't.

He hasn't made those without some of the NBA's best handles much like Kyrie Irving. Curry can do things with the ball that are not only aesthetically impressive but also tactical, creating the space to launch the world's most beautiful jump shot, his often dizzying pre-shot. The sequences effortlessly combine dribbling and come together in the more traditional get-up-and-shoot stages. He has reshaped the point guard game by perfecting a stand-alone substitute for the last two typical catch-and-shoot attempts in the middle of the last decade. Curry defeated conventional wisdom by showing the world that players could create and make their own three-pointers and dominate the best professional basketball league on planet earth, without a doubt Curry's masterpiece was the 2015-16 season when he scored a mind-blowing 402 three-pointers , a record that still comfortably stands today.

In that season, Curry already held the record in this category, but he had never even come close to 300 that year. He went on to make 45 of his career, 886, a three-point increase from the middle of the court, well, if he works and is faking, he faked how. Did he hit all those three-pointers well? Half of them involve assist opportunities, as Kerr and the Warriors emphasize shooting in his offense, but the other half were created by Kerr himself on his way to revealing his own three-point shooting record. Curry took advantage of three different ones. unassisted techniques, pull-ups coming off a screen and step-backs, he made a ridiculous 47 percent of 189 3-pointers like this, sank a sizzling 44 of 111 3-pointers, dribbled off screens like this and drained 39 of 90 step-backs.

Triples like this, that's right, it was Curry who launched the step-back revolution even before players like James Harden, Damien Lillard, Luca Doncic and Tran Young turned the move into a fundamental weapon. curry did not invent the step back, but he adopted it and attached it. He was the wettest jumper the league had ever seen. It was very clear that Curry was not only the best shooter in the world, but he was also the most diverse shooter. He could perform his killing shot in so many different ways and in so many different ways. places where he proved once and for all that a dominant three-point threat could be the most valuable player in the league.

One of those 402 3-pointers from 2015-16 will always stand out and also exemplifies a lot of things that make Curry so special. On February 27, 2016, the Warriors played Kevin Durant and The Thunder in one of the best regular season games of the entire decade. The two teams traded blows for 48 minutes and finished tied at 103 at the end of regulation. It was a Saturday night and the best nationally televised game of the year captivated NBA fans

every

where, then Curry won the game and broke Twitter with one of the most notable plays in NBA history by end of overtime after Russell Westbrook missed a tough 14-footer with eight seconds left.

On the clock, the Andre Iguodala Warriors grabbed the backboard and immediately passed it to Curry, the game was tied at 118. With just five seconds left in overtime, Curry was now holding the ball 70 feet away from the basket, Three dribbles later, Curry had barely crossed the halfway line. on the court, a normal team and a normal player might have called a timeout to abandon a play, but this was Curry in 2015-16 and normality didn't apply. Mike Brain was calling for action for ABC and could barely keep up. They have a timeout at that time. Breen's vocal pace quickened as he realized Curry had no plans to use the timeout.

He decided not to use it. Curry, in the center of the city, the ball was suspended in the air for half a second before people in the bars relaxed on the sofa at home or fought against sleep at 11:24. p.m. were rocked by a double helping of Breen's

signature

freys with six-tenths of a second left, not only did Curry not call that timeout, he calmly got up 37 damn feet from the basket and hit the shot of the year, making it craziest of this. It wasn't crazy as the ball floated over the court, we all knew that 37 foot shot had a good chance of going in because it was steph curry the ruler of the deep before we even uttered the lillard logo, that shot exemplified another big part of the three curry. point arsenal the transition from three For decades after the NBA added the three-point line, coaches frowned upon players dribbling down the court on a fast break and simply shooting a three-pointer, it was a bad shot, but again Curry changed all that in 2015-16, Curry exhausted himself. 42 of 144 three-pointers in transition Kerr had given Curry the final green light and it paid off: the Warriors won an unthinkable 73 games that year and Curry's shooting was fundamental, it was also largely the reason why the Warriors won three titles last decade and a big reason why the NBA is now obsessed with three-point shooting like never before.

Curry's signature shot not only propelled the Warriors to five straight Finals appearances, but it still resonates throughout the basketball world, from the pros to college and especially among the younger aspiring superstars who now watch the game in a clearer way. A completely new way to make dominance seem different, perhaps even more attainable, but beneath his confidence and exuberance is the tireless determination of the incomparable three-point king. Thanks for watching espn on youtube to stream live sports and premium content. Subscribe to espn plus.