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Stephen Curry named his favorite player in 2014: "My dad would probably be mad"
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- Stephen Curry named his favorite player in 2014: "My dad would probably be mad"
Stephen Curry 's career is inevitably nearing its end, although based on how he played this season before his injury, it's hard to say a player in that kind of form has any real reason to think about retirement.
Still, the Golden State Warriors have been far from relevant in the race for the Larry O'Brien trophy since their last championship in 2022 and at the end of the day that is the fuel that drives the player with the most made threes in NBA history.
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Steph has long surpassed his idols, the players he ultimately modeled his game after and more than 10 years ago, when his journey was just beginning, he reflected on Reggie Miller 's influence on his development as a player.
"My favorite player growing up was Reggie Miller , actually," Steph said back in 2014. "My dad would probably be mad. My dad was obviously my favorite player. He loved to see my pops play, but I loved watching Reggie. It's the way he moved on the court and big shots he hit and he was just fearless. So it was a dream come true when my dad got to go up against Reggie."
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Curry was inspired by Miller's heroics
The Indiana Pacers icon is still remembered today as one of the greatest shooters this game has ever seen and the fact that he is seventh on the all-time list of made threes despite playing his final NBA games 21 seasons ago only confirms how ahead of his time Reggie was.
His slender frame did not stop him from becoming one of the most dominant players of one of the most physically demanding eras in league history, as he turned off-ball movement into an art form.
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It can therefore be said that Steph found his role model not only in his father, Dell, who was also a deadly shooter, but in Reggie as well, because he maximized his strengths while compensating for a lack of physical attributes.
What Curry went on to do in the years following that interview became a story of its own. Today, he is seen as the man who changed the way basketball is played, as the entire league suddenly began shooting threes at an unprecedented rate.
The system Steve Kerr built around Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green maximized his talent and small-ball lineups became the norm, with the center position nearly disappearing from dominant schemes.
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Passing on the torch moment
As for Miller, mutual respect has always been present and the depth of the relationship between the two legends is best captured by Miller when speaking about Curry and the greatest game-changers in basketball history .
"There's only a handful of players that you think about that have truly changed the game. Having a 6'9" point guard, I don't think we'll ever see that again in Magic. Having a guy who flies, Air Jordan, having someone as dominant as a Shaquille O'Neal, even though they say Wilt, someone who changed the culture like an A.I. and then to me, Stephen Curry . Those five guys changed basketball," said Reggie.
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That's the beauty of basketball — Kobe Bryant grew up studying Michael Jordan, LeBron James took cues from Magic Johnson and Curry found inspiration in Miller.
This passing of the torch is often forgotten because, before they became legends themselves, they were just kids watching someone else live out the moments they would one day try to recreate.
For Steph, Reggie was exactly that figure.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Apr 1, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
