- Programming note: Listen to Monte Poole and Dalton Johnson's wide-ranging interview with Warriors superstar Steph Curry in the latest episode of "Dubs Talk," which will debut Thursday morning wherever you listen to your podcasts.
The loves of Stephen Curry are many, beginning with family and faith. Then comes sports, where basketball is No. 1 and golf is a fierce No. 2.
As fate would have, the two sports are scheduled to collide next summer. There is the annual American Century Championship golf tournament, gathering for which has become tradition for the Curry men. And there is the 2024 Summer Olympics, one of the few stages on which Curry has not stood.
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“There won't be any conflict for me,” Curry told NBC Sports Bay Area in an upcoming "Dubs Talk" episode. “The title will always be there. But Paris 2024 will not.
“So, it's an easy decision.”
The title Curry refers to is that which he won in the 2023 ACC title on the shores of picturesque Lake Tahoe. In the most glorious golf experience of his life, he drained a hole-in-one on the par-3 seventh hole on Saturday and then came back on Sunday to win with an eagle putt on the 18th.
Curry’s response to both feats with expressions of pure joy, launching into full gallop down the fairway after the hole-in-one and flipping his cap to the wind and sprinting over to his wife, Ayesha, after the winning putt.
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Curry, 35, is the first active athlete to win the tournament since 2000 and he took immense pride in being the first African American winner.
All of which trimmed a few items off his bucket list.
What remains at or near the top is an Olympic gold medal with Team USA. Curry was not selected in 2012, withdrew from consideration in 2016 and chose to heal a sore body rather than suit up in 2020.
This time, Curry knows what he wants – and how badly he wants to get it.
“I don't know what the schedules look like next summer,” he said. “I'm kind of staying in the now on that whole process. But I've already said I want to play in the Olympics and (will do) whatever it requires to prepare and get ready and be a part of the training camp, prelims, and all that.”
Curry has two NBA MVP awards – including, in 2016, the only unanimous selection in the league’s 67-year history of issuing the award. He owns an NBA Finals MVP award (2022), an All-Star Game MVP award (2022) and is a nine-time All-NBA choice.
There’s not much left to win in the NBA, so it’s onto the Olympics. His previous international experience consists of the FIBA Under-19 championship as an amateur in 2007, and two stints in the FIBA World Cup, the last coming in 2014.
Curry will be among friends this time around, as Team USA’s fourth-place finish in the 2023 FIBA World Cup has motivated many of the veterans who chose not to participate. LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum are among those committed to chase Olympic gold.
The only factor still being weighed is the schedule. Should the Warriors reach the NBA Finals, their season could run as late as June 23. The Paris Olympics open 33 days later, leaving little time for recovery, training camp and travel.
“But I do know the head coach of the Olympics team,” Curry mused, referring to Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “So, maybe he’ll give me a little three-day hiatus and, you know, get some rest and rejuvenation in Tahoe before I come join the team.
“I’m going to have to have that conversation.”
Curry was grinning. He was kidding. Perhaps.
But the pull of golf is real to Steph. And golfing at the ACC at Edgewood has become a family tradition. It’s where the Curry men – Steph, his brother Seth, and their father Dell – gather with a few close friends each July for what Dell refers to as a “boy’s weekend” in Tahoe.
“I'd say chasing an Olympic gold medal would be the only reason that I would miss Tahoe,” Curry said.
That, it would seem, settles the issue once and for all.
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