NBA: Changing of the guard as Steph Curry takes over from Kobe Bryant

“The torch has been passed to a new generation,” declared President John F Kennedy in his immortal inauguration address. Generations perforce are briefer on the basketball court than in politics. But the principle is the same, and so it was this week. Kobe Bryant, superstar bulwark of the Los Angeles Lakers for two decades through thick and (of late, very) thin, announced his retirement. Meanwhile the sport’s newest anointed superstar has been leading his team on the greatest season’s start in NBA history.

Ever since his pro debut with Oakland’s Golden State Warriors in 2009, Steph Curry has been a class act. But only this year did he emerge as arguably the best player in the game – better even, some would say, than LeBron James, with whom he is linked by the astounding coincidence of having been born in the same maternity unit at the City hospital of Akron, Ohio. Akron may have lost its reputation as the “Tyre Capital of the World”, but when it comes to spawning basketball legends, there’s clearly something in the local water.

James, after a controversial detour to the Miami Heat, is now back with his home state team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and living in Akron, 30 miles to the south. Curry, however, left as an infant. In America, trades run in the family, in basketball as in politics. His father was a pro with the Charlotte Hornets, and Curry grew up in North Carolina, emerging as a high school and college talent whom the Warriors took as their first pick in the 2009 draft.

Last season everything came together. Curry and Golden State romped to the NBA championships, defeating James and Cleveland in the finals. Before that, Curry had earned his first NBA Most Valuable Player award as the Warriors compiled a 67-15 regular season record, matching the fifth best of all-time. This season promises even better. As of last night, they were a scarcely believable 20-0. They had consigned the previous 15-0 record start, set by the Houston Rockets in 1993, to the dustbin and were on pace to eclipse the best regular-season mark of 72-10, set by Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls in 1995-96 and powered by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Many believe Curry, who at 27 is entering the prime of his career, could one day be as special as even Jordan. He isn’t there yet of course. Like Jordan, however, he can do it all. By basketball standards he’s almost small, just 6ft 3in, compared with MJ’s 6ft 6in and James’ 6ft 8in.But he is canny in defence and has a dribble that leaves opponents looking like lamp posts. Most important, he scores three-pointers – that most basic yet satisfying of basketball skills – at a rate no one before has matched. Last season he had 286 of them, converting almost half his attempts from long range. Few things are more thrilling than Curry slicing down the court and making a jumper from just outside the arc. Already he’s being hailed as the best shooter in NBA history.

open image in gallery

And he does it with a grace, effortlessness and elasticity that has admirers reaching for artistic metaphors. A couple of top American ballet dancers have said that, in another life, Curry could have been one of them, while The New York Times has likened the Warriors to a Count Basie band, “a marvel of swing and rhythm and intelligence,” with Curry as “the team’s great free-form trumpet player.” Even MJ rarely got such lyrical write-ups. At his age there should be a decade’s worth more to come from Curry, injury permitting. His current four-year $44m (£30m) deal must be one of the biggest sporting steals on the planet.

Like politics, basketball moves in eras identified by the names of its greatest practitioners. Over the last 30 years, we’ve had the Lakers and the fast-breaking “showtime” style personified by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, that turned a sport into a branch of Hollywood.

There followed the era of the Bulls and Jordan under the “Zen Master” Jackson, winner of six championships in Chicago before he went to the Lakers and won five more. Those Los Angeles teams were built around Bryant and his frère ennemi Shaquille O’Neal. Historically, they formed the bridge from the MJ era to today’s age of James and Curry.

The current Lakers are a train wreck. Jack Nicholson, their most famous and devoted fan, must feel he’s back in the cuckoo’s nest as he watches the horror show unfold. The one-time glamour team of the NBA lost 15 of their first 18 games – in part because of the understandable deference of younger players to Bryant, the fading titan in their midst who, battered by injury, is missing shots he would have put away in his sleep a few years ago.

His career mirrors uncannily that of another, even more crumbling American athletic monument, Tiger Woods. He is 37, Woods is 39. Both have adorned their sport for two decades, but at a high physical price. Woods is in a far worse state than Bryant: after yet more back surgery, the 14-times major winner cannot even bend to pick up a ball. When will he be able to play? “I’ve no idea,” he said this week. “There’s nothing I can look forward to, nothing I can build towards.” Bryant can still play, just about, but making his retirement official came as not the slightest surprise. A Woods statement that his PGA tour days were done would be even less of one.

open image in gallery

Bryant, however, at least has the consolation of a final lap of honour around NBA arenas. On Tuesday he was back in Philadelphia, where he was born, for a game against the woeful 76ers. He had dissed the team in the past, and was dubbed “Hometown Zero” by local tabloids. Whenever he returned he was loudly booed. Not this final time, however, as fans cheered his name for a full minute before the game. The Lakers lost, but Bryant was visibly moved. “Appreciative beyond belief,” he said. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better, other than winning the game.”

Which leaves just two men standing in the contest to attach their name to an era – those two men delivered to this world in the same maternity hospital, 39 months apart. Until last season, LeBron James, with his Mensa-grade basketball IQ and virtually unstoppable, was almost universally regarded as the game’s finest current player. But now some are revising judgement in Curry’s favour.

Their two teams met in the 2015 finals and, by sheer force of will, James – deprived of his sorcerer’s accomplice Kyrie Irving – carried the team to a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-seven series. But then even James’ tank ran dry. Curry and Golden State took over and ran out convincing 4-2 winners.

This year the Warriors and the Cavaliers, in that order, are considered the two best teams in the league. Fortuitously or otherwise, the NBA schedule matches them in Cleveland on Christmas Day. By then Irving should be back, and surely the Warriors will have lost their unbeaten record. For basketball fans everywhere though, it should be a present for the ages.