Center of Gravity: How Curry Ruined Basketball According to my Grandpa

On grief, family, and the old‑school basketball arguments anchored in how we pass legacy on.

I opened my eyes from sleep, grabbing my trusty phone, blinking slowly as the fog began to lift from my vision. 1:45am huh? I had been asleep for like only three hours. Damn.

I tossed my cell across my bed to land silently on the comforter, and I reflected on just how I was going to get up. I could barely lift my head up off of the pillow, my lips chapped, and the roof of my mouth dry as Saharan sand.

My neck muscles strained and shuddered as I forced myself to lift my head up. It lifted an inch off of the pillow, and a splash of hot tears coated my eyes from the pain-to-effort ratio. I reached out to grab that orange-brownish pill bottle that accompanies such a case as mine, rattling it to reassure myself that there were a few more meds left to help ease me through the week.

So much pain. I swung my legs off the edge of the bed, the crinkling of the velcro cloth on my stomach wrap reminding me that I was barely a day removed from extensive abdominal surgery.

My parents were staying with me to help me navigate the situation, and the minute they heard my feet hit the ground, I could hear them stir from the living room. “Dan??”, my dad’s baritone penetrated my bedroom door. “You good, son?”.

As I turned the door handle, I sucked my teeth audibly and grunted, “I’m all good, just moving slow”.

He was there to meet me, his eyebrows furrowed, as I grabbed my cane and stooped through the doorway. My mom was right behind him, her eyebrows knotted high, both their faces declaring immediate concern. I needed their love wholeheartedly, even though a small part of me felt a bit of guilt that I had them so worried about me. Eldest kid vibes, I guess? IDK. I just really appreciated my folks coming all that way to take care of me, preemptively making sure that I wouldn’t face one of my hardest life periods alone.

A couple weeks later, my folks had returned to their home a state away as I regained the ability to walk around and, y’know, not collapse. I was slowly coming out on the other side of a “pharmaceutically drugged, not knowing whether it’s day-or-night” kind of summer. That medical staff (bless their heart) carved me open like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Even though they told me it’d take around two months to recover, each lightning bolt of pain or dull ache permeating in my guts would remind me that wasn’t just a loose timeline…that was the best chance I had at recovering from a heavily stitched tummy. Days slipped into night, starry skies ebbed back into early morning.

This particular morning I was jolted awake by my phone ringing. My first instinct was to silence that annoying tinny ringtone melody, but also desperately curious to see if Kaiser Permanente was calling to reup my sweet, sweet Oxycodone supply (they had cut me off). As I snatched my cell, I saw my eldest sister’s name on the screen.

Just as I thought I was coming out of the pain fog, life hit me with another kind of ache. She gave me the terrible news that my grandfather on my mom’s side had passed away. Crazy.

Remember the testimonial I penned about connecting in Warriors basketball with my my mom when I was living in Asia? Well her father was a sports fanatic. I mean he watched every team in the big American sports markets of football, baseball, and basketball. He was for sure a pure hoops junkie from waaaay way back.

In honor of him, this evening I’ve nestled myself in my writing corner for the first time since June, chomping down Tylenol, ready to shake the old (opiate high) writer’s block off to honor a guy who has shaped my sorts fandom.

He’s the guy who could stop any hoops talk with a phrase only someone from his era would know, like “Multiple MVP and NBA Champion Nikola Jokic ain’t all that! He ain’t stopping Wilt!”. I’d blink a few times realizing that he had actually watched Wilt Chamberlain (arguably the most dominant big man ever) play. I mean, who was to say he was wrong? Papa was a portal to ancient sports history, intensely reporting from a long bygone era with a clarity that made it seem like Wilt scoring 100 happened yesterday, not a billion years ago.

Oh man, he loved centers. I remember playing him one-on-one at family BBQ’s in West Oakland and he was posting me up and talking trash like, “Watch out for Big Shaq! Big Shaq is backing you down Kobe!”.

He truly believed point guards were supposed to bring the ball down the court and find their big to initiate the offense. He thought Michael Jordan was an extremely skilled ballhog who had to do what he had to do because he never had a true center. He thought Steph Curry ruined the game because he ushered in the three-point bombing era:

“What does Curry do when his team gets down?” he’d ask rhetorically. “Shoot a bunch of bad shots from the three-point line! And sometimes he make ‘em, but othertimes he don’t even let his big people enough time to get down there and rebound for him! Now he got everybody wanting to shoot threes! The point of basketball is to get as close to the rim as possible and let your big man take over!”

But once I thought I had him figured out, he’d zag when I thought he’d zig.

“If MJ was a ballhog, and Curry ruined the league with 3pt shooting, you must hate James Harden right?”, I’d nonchalantly ask him over dinner a decade ago.

“No! Harden gets to the free throw line like a big man!”, Papa started getting activated. “He puts you in the penalty with foul trouble! I love his game! He ain’t like no dang Curry!”

Any family members in earshot would start cracking up as I would stare at Papa in amused disbelief. He would pull out the newspaper, meticulously thumb through the sports section until he located the previous night’s box scores, and squint through the tiny numbers muttering to himself, “Now I know the Rockets played last night…Harden had about 18 free throws…who did they play…oh yeah they were in Minnesota…”

He’d jam his index finger down on the box score and exalt in Harden’s dominance, proudly arguing against any other takes. He was a freight train of statistics and game theory. And then in the playoffs, when Harden would get eliminated like clockwork, his response would be “WELL YEAH HE SHOOTING TOO MANY THREES! HE AIN’T NO LEBRON!” which would draw a snicker from me.

I remember when the Warriors were on the rise in 2013-2014 and he’d watch every one of their games, muttering every time an errant three bricked or a rebound was missed. They had finally got a big man with Andrew Bogut but if you let Papa tell it, he wasn’t a “real” big man. When the Clippers used the power of racism their big man duo of Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan to physically bully the Warriors out of the playoff in 7 games, Papa crowed all summer about how the Warriors would never make it without getting a star center.

And when the Warriors won the title next year, he dove headfirst into the “Cavaliers didn’t have Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love!” anti-GSW bandwagon. That headstrong antagonism began a string of Christmas Day games involving Warriors vs Cavs which were high drama both on the court and in his spacious living room as the family would playfully roast him on every LeBron flop or turnover, and he’d do a little jig every time “King James” would get a posterizing jam. “THEY TOO SMALL!” he’d bellow as we rolled our eyes.

Last December, I didn’t know that would be our last Christmas day Curry vs LeBron game together. If you recall, it looked like the Warriors were getting stockings full of coal as LeBron’s Lakers had the lead in the final two minutes. The Dubs roared back to tie the game in the final seconds with Curry burying triples in furious fashion, only for the Lakers to escape on an Austin Reaves layup.

Papa was moving slower last Christmas, forgetting players names a bit more, a little less committed to the “Warriors ain’t that good” bit. I wonder if it was because they won four championships during all his performative hating that it took the air out of his rhetorical sails. Or maybe he was especially grateful to have us around that year and toned down the smack talk. But it was great to see his legs kicked up in his La-Z-Boy chair, droning on about how both those teams wouldn’t have a chance against Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets.

Because they had a (say it with me now) REAL BIG MAN.

That ornery arguing spirit is probably where a piece of where the Gold Blooded King was forged in me. This was Papa’s sports brain: an insatiable desire to scour box cores, newspaper and magazine articles, watching game after game year round.

I wanted to learn how he was so sure about his sports theories, and then gather my own to playfully combat him. We’d go for hours jumping between evidence and hypotheticals, circling games on the calendar to see who was right that night.

When I became a sports journalist covering the Dubs for real, he was so proud and also confused. “You ask the players questions at the games?”, he quietly asked.

“Yes Papa, sometimes I do”, I beamed.

“Well ask them why they ain’t got no big man!”.

That’s probably what fueled my question to Steph and Draymond Green last year about dealing with Joel Embiid, you know, a reeeeaaal big man.

My last phone call I ever got from Papa I’m pretty sure was an accident, as he thought he was calling my mom. He sounded weary and tired until he realized it was me instead. He shifted gears, found some strength in his voice, and immediately asked me who the best guard in the league was.

Of course I said Steph, to which he scoffed (go figure) and said “Curry can’t guard Luka Doncic! Luka too big! He gon post Curry up all day!”

I retorted, “Papa, can Luka guard Steph?”.

“Sure he can!” he snapped back. “Besides all Steph wanna do is shoot threes anyway!”.

I laughed heartily, feeling the echoes of all of our sports banter from over the decades. Now that he’s gone, I really appreciate him for how he supported the extended family, and spent time with me helping develop and sharpen my sports knowledge.

Rest easy, Papa. Heaven just got a real big man.

Sigh. Anyways, I need some more meds, brb.