What is Fantasy Basketball?
Fantasy Basketball is a fantasy sport. It was popularized in the mid-1980s after the internet was invented. Usually, people online draft NBA players and create their particular team. The roster consists of 1 PG, 1 SG, 1 SF, 1 PF, 1 Center, 1 Forward, 3 Utility, and 3 Bench. To score, there are a few ways: Rotisserie, also known as ROTO, Head-to-Head(H2H), Fantasy Points, Daily Fantasy Points.
History of National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association also referred to as the NBA is a professional basketball league compromising of 30 world-class elite teams featuring the best basketball players in the world. These 30 teams are equally divided into 2 Conferences namely the Western and the Eastern Conference. Each Conference has 15 teams that compete for a spot in the Playoffs. After a gruelling playoff series, the best team from each Conference competes against each other to win the NBA title. The NBA was founded back in 1946 in New York, USA. The very first season in the NBA was the 1949-50 season in which the Minneapolis Lakers won. Since then, it’s been almost 70 years where basketball is played at an elite level by professional and extremely competitive sportsmen thriving to win a championship.
NBA Over The Ages
The NBA has evolved a lot in many years. When the NBA had begun, tall and physically strong men wee Stephen Curry, a household name today who is not a ‘true’ point guard like Rajon Rondo or Tony Parker. By saying that, no disrespect is ought to either of the players but rather recognizing the fact that the NBA has changed for the better. A point guard today can do everything a point guard did 10 years ago along with better shooting being slightly better at defense and the vision to spot the open man on the floor.
Of the 11 times, a point guard has won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, Steph Curry and Steve Nash are the only 2 players to have done it twice with Steph being the first unanimous MVP in the history of the game. Probably nobody could have even slightly predicted 10 years ago. Most of the scoring was through the Center. If you look at the stats of Centers in the 1960-90s, you’ll realize that most of the team points were through them. Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Hakeem Olajuwon all were dominating the league. But as time passed by, players kept getting much more versatile and kept improving their game. Today a center can do much more than what a center could do 50 years ago. Similarly, we have Steph Curry while he was dealing with severe ankle injuries and was not even sure whether his career in the NBA was guaranteed, forget winning the NBA title 3 times and making it to the finals for 5 consecutive years.
Stephen Wardell Curry II
Steph Curry was born on 14 March 1988 in Akron, Ohio hometown of LeBron James, one of the greatest to ever play the game. Born to Sonya and Dell Curry, Steph has a younger brother Seth Curry, who plays for the Dallas Mavericks and a younger sister Sydel Curry with their father being an NBA veteran who played in the NBA for 16 years. Both Sydel and Sonya played volleyball in college.
Steph Curry also nicknamed as the baby faced assassin the golden boy and chef curry has paved his path into the books and the Hall of Fame. Even though he was born with a silver spoon, Steph had to overcome multiple hardships. Steph chose to go to Davidson College in North Carolina to pursue his dream of playing in the NBA. Davidson was pretty much unheard when it came to basketball and so was Steph Curry back then. He got no offers in scholarship from any school nobody recruited him except Davidson due to his thin and lean stature which reflected his inability to survive in the NBA. Despite everything going against Steph, he had a historic run at Davidson where he played from 2006 to 2009 before making it to the NBA. In his junior and last season, he was the leading scorer in NCAA almost averaging 28.6 points, 5.6 assists, and 2.5 rebounds.
Steph shot around 40% behind the 3 point line and almost took the Davidson Wildcats to the final 4 in the NCAA tournament. Before graduating from Davidson, Steph made it to the NBA where the Golden State Warriors drafted Curry as the 7th pick in the first round in the 2009 NBA draft.
Golden State Warriors
Steph’s rookie season was in 2009 when he lead the league in the most amount of 3 pointers made back then which was recently broken by Donovon Mitchell of the Utah Jazz. He was averaging an impressive 17.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.9 assists in 36.2 minutes.
In his sophomore season he was averaging 18.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.8 steals, and around 1.5 steals in 33.6 minutes per game. During this season, he also won the NBA sportsmanship award and the Skills challenge conducted during the All-star break.
In the 2011-12 NBA season, Steph had undergone several ankle surgeries and missed around 40 games throughout the season. Before the 2012-13 NBA season started, Curry signed a $44 million contract with the Golden State Warriors. This was the time when many people doubted whether he deserved the money or not. The pivotal point in Steph’s career was after the 2012-13 NBA season when he had to successfully undergo rehabilitation. Alongside he kept improving his game. He was shooting at a better percentage behind the arc year by year.
The Breakout Season(s)
Before the start of the 2014-15 NBA season, Golden State Warriors hired a new head coach. He was Steve Kerr from 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. Kerr gave curry more freedom to shoot the basketball. Curry instinctively realized his role in the team to be the leader and started playing better than ever. Curry lead the team successfully with 67 wins in the regular season. Curry became the MVP for the first time for his exceptional performance in the regular season averaging 23.8 points, 7.7 assists, and 2 steals per game. In the Playoffs, Curry and the Golden State Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets in the Conference Finals. They matched up against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA finals. The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cavs in 6 games to win their first NBA championship after 40 years.
In the 2015-16 season, Curry leads the team to a historic season where they won 73 games breaking the record held previously by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. He was unanimously voted to be the MVP of the 2015-16 season. No player in the history of NBA had ever won an MVP unanimously. Curry achieved another shooting milestone, becoming the first player to make 400 three-pointers in the regular season. Curry also joined the 50-40-90 club by becoming the 7th player in the history of NBA to average 50% from the field, 40% behind the arc, and 90% from the free-throw line. Curry averaged over 30 ppg in the entire regular season. Many people consider this to be one of the best regular seasons to ever witness in their lives. They compared him to the GOAT Michael Jordan himself. The GSW made it to the NBA finals but fell short to the Cavs losing in game 7 of the NBA finals.
Golden State Dynasty
With immense success, the entire Golden State organization rose at the top of the league. Oracle Arena, home of the GSW was roaring day in, day out. They were automatically one of the favorites to contend for the NBA title. After they signed Kevin Durant of OKC, GS faced a lot of criticism from the fans to the media. KD along with Steph, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson under Steve Kerr’s guidance had a great run together. Other role players like Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston provided a lot of depth and experience. The Splash Brothers Klay and Steph broke multiple records together.
The Warriors won 2 back-to-back NBA championships in 2017 and 2018. Steph then signed another $201 million contract with the GSW until 2021. Already being called as one of the greatest 3 point shooters in the history of the NBA, Curry continued impressing everyone with his sensational talent. On 10 March 2017, Steph surpassed his father Dell with 12,671 points.
In the 2019 conference finals, Steph and Seth faced each other creating history by being the only brothers to ever compete against each other. Steph’s GSW defeated Seth’s Trailblazers and paved their way to the NBA finals for the 5th time in a row.
In the 2019 NBA finals, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson tore their Achilles and ACL respectively. Steph gave his best but fell short of winning the title. In the 2019-20 NBA season, Curry broke his left hand when he unintentionally collided with Aaron Bayne’s of Phoenix Suns. Even though Steph is out for most of the 2019-20 season, he will come back stronger and better.
