Steph Curry is a two-time NBA MVP and three-time champion. The Warriors star is the greatest shooter in NBA history and is the leader of one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history.
But it wasn't always that way for Curry.
Drafted by the Warriors with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, the Dubs went 26-56 in Curry's rookie season, and followed that up by going 36-46 the following year. Golden State drafted Klay Thompson in 2011 and promptly went 23-43 in the lockout-shortened season.
But the Warriors were figuring it out and began to transform themselves from Western Conference doormat to NBA superpower rather quickly.
While Curry has spent his entire NBA career launching 3-pointers in Oakland, the Dubs' journey has made it feel like something else entirely.
"Even in like my 10 years of being here, I feel like I've played for three different teams," Curry said in an interview with "60 Minutes." "The team that sucked, to the team trying to figure it out, to the established team that we got now. We're very confident in who we are, what we all bring to the table. I like this one."
Indeed, it's been a long road to the top for Curry and the Warriors. But their five-year run of dominance is one of the most impressive in NBA history, making the losing that filled the early part of the decade a price worth paying to achieve basketball immortality.
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The days of being an NBA laughing stock are long behind Curry and the Warriors. Golden State enters the 2019 NBA playoffs as the prohibitive favorite to repeat as NBA champions, with very few teams posing a realistic chance of stopping their runaway freight train of dominance.
Curry and the Warriors paid their dues in Ls early on, but now they sit on the NBA's throne, and there's so reason to think they'll be relinquishing it anytime soon.
