Family focus: How the Currys are leading the second generation of NBA athletes
By Tom Haberstroh
February 15, 2019
This year’s All-Star Weekend in Charlotte will be a family affair, a celebration of House Curry, if you will.
Stephen Curry will participate in the 3-point contest with his brother, Seth, a guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, marking the first time that brothers will compete together in the marquee event. Not only that, the Currys will let it fly in the same city where the two grew up. Their father Dell, currently an analyst for the Hornets broadcast team and a two-time 3-point shooting contest participant himself, was part of the original Charlotte Hornets team and retired as the franchise’s career scoring leader. On Sunday, before the All-Star Game, the NBA will honor Dell at an event for his contributions on and off the court.
Make no mistake about it, the Curry family is NBA royalty and this is their homecoming. Stephen is the two-time MVP and three-time NBA champion who currently leads the NBA in 3-pointers per game (5.1). Seth, now in his fifth season, leads the NBA in 3-point percentage, making a blistering 47.5 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc.
Fans are obsessed with their every move. Seth’s Instagram account has 1.7 million followers, more than any MLB or NHL star. Meanwhile, Steph led the league in jersey sales for a third-straight season and boasts more Instagram followers than the top-three most-followed NFL stars, Odell Beckham Jr., Tom Brady and Cam Newton, combined.
While the Currys changed the game of basketball by weaponizing the 3-point shot like never before, they’re also the most prominent faces in a fascinating trend. A wave of second-generation NBA players has flooded the league in recent years. This season, there are 27 sons of NBA players, including Steph, Seth, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Devin Booker, Domantas Sabonis and Justise Winslow, among others.
The Currys are the patriarchs among a growing family of patriarchs. These days, the term “NBA family” takes on a new meaning.
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As Stephen, Seth and Dell act as official and unofficial hosts this weekend in Charlotte, they’ll also serve as reminders of the father-son dynamic infiltrating the league’s elite.
In the All-Star Game itself, Stephen will be joined by fellow second-generation player Thompson (father Mychal won two titles with the Lakers). Booker, son of former NBAer Melvin, will join Seth and Stephen in the 3-point contest after winning last year’s event. Sabonis (the legendary Arvydas is his father) and Jaren Jackson Jr (father Jaren played 12 seasons in the NBA) will be featured in the Rising Stars game. Al Horford and Kevin Love, though not chosen to participate this year, are All-Star mainstays who are also second-generation NBA players.
That doesn’t even illustrate the full scope of this familial phenomenon. That list of 27 does not count Rising Star participant and Brooklyn Nets center Jarrett Allen and his father, Leonard, who was drafted 50th overall by the Dallas Mavericks in 1985 but played professionally in Spain instead. JaVale McGee’s mother, Pamela, was the No. 2 overall pick in the WNBA’s 1997 draft and his father George Montgomery was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1985 draft but never played in the NBA. Also outside that 27: Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons, whose fathers played pro basketball in Australia, and Luka Doncic, whose father, Sasa, played pro ball in Slovenia.
Both of Lonzo Ball’s parents played college hoops and his father, LaVar Ball, once signed with the New York Jets as a defensive end. The Knicks’ Kevin Knox is actually Kevin Knox II; his father played in the NFL. Marvin Bagley III is the grandson of two-time All-Star (Jumping) Joe Caldwell and the son of Marvin Jr., who played pro football in the AFL. Lauri Markkanen’s father, Pekka, played pro hoops in Europe after playing for coach Roy Williams at University of Kansas. Lauri’s mother, Riika, played basketball for the Finnish national team. Dirk Nowitzki’s mother, Helga, once played basketball for the German national team while his father Jörg-Werner was an elite handball player.
The Currys aren’t even the only active NBA brothers with a father who played in the league; Jerami and Jerian Grant are the sons of former NBAer Harvey Grant, who is the twin brother of All-Star and four-time champion Horace.
All these familial links may seem obvious. Height is the leading predictor of NBA players and that’s a genetically-linked trait passed on through DNA. In 2016, the Wall Street Journal found that nearly half of NBA players were related to current or former elite athletes. Giants tend to produce giants, after all. Not only that, but the pool of potential NBA fathers only gets larger over time.
But this latest boom seems extraordinary. The arrival of Curry in 2009 coincided with an influx of NBA sons. In 2008-09, the list was only 10 names long. During Stephen’s rookie season, in 2009-10, he led a group that grew to 16, the most the league had ever seen. The next season, two more. Another three the following year. By 2014-15, it ballooned to 27 players, where it currently stands.
There may be more on the horizon. Oregon center Bol Bol, son of the late Manute Bol, is one of the top prospects in the 2019 Draft. LeBron “Bronny” James Jr., is still in eighth grade, but he has reportedly received an offer from Duke University already and could reach the NBA right around the time his father turns 40 years. Dwyane Wade’s son, Zaire, has already been offered a scholarship by Nebraska as part of the class of 2020. Shareef O’Neal, the son of Shaquille, is at UCLA but sitting out the season with a heart ailment. Cole Anthony, the son of Greg, is the No. 2 prospect of the 2019 class on ESPN’s 100 and Trayce Jackson-Davis (son of Dale Davis) checks in at No. 25. Scotty Pippen Jr., Kenyon Martin Jr., DJ Rodman (short for Dennis Rodman Jr.) are all highly-touted prospects coming through the pipeline.
Nature is certainly a big part of the boom, but nurture could also play a pivotal role. More specifically: Follow the money. The NBA’s business skyrocketed in the 1990s with Michael Jordan and the globalization of the game. In Dell Curry’s first season, the NBA’s salary cap stood at $4.9 million. By the time he retired in 2001-02, it had grown to $42.5 million. It stands to reason that NBA players became substantially richer and therefore, able to provide more resources for their children -- access to trainers, gyms and specialists -- to pursue basketball as a profession.
I asked Brent Barry, the vice president of basketball operations for the San Antonio Spurs who played 14 seasons in the NBA, if he could offer up any insight. He and his two brothers, Jon and Drew, both played in the NBA, following in the footsteps of his Hall-of-Fame-father Rick.
Brent first pointed out the fundamental role of genetics, but he also made a point to emphasize his mother, Pam. She is the daughter of NBA player Bruce Hale, which makes Brent a third-generation NBA player of sorts.
That’s when it hits: Does the rise of the father-son NBA combo have more to do with the mother’s side? The 1990s saw a boon for high-level female athletics. In 1991, the International Olympic Committee made a ruling that all new sports applying for Olympic recognition must include female competitors. Women’s soccer and softball became Olympic sports leading into the 1996 Games in Atlanta. The WNBA debuted in 1997, roughly around the same time as the current influx of NBA sons were born.
David Epstein, author of the New York Times best-selling book “The Sports Gene,” is an expert on the role of nature vs. nurture in athletics. He agrees that genetics are the integral part of the rise of father-son NBA players.
“You have the sons who have potential, the fathers with means and knowledge, and the high desire to follow in dad's footsteps,” Epstein says. “You have a perfect storm of convergence.”
Though he hasn’t studied this particular finding, he hypothesizes that there are more athletic parent couples than ever before. The athletic supercouples like the McGees, Nowitzkis and Markkanens are becoming more and more the norm.
"Women haven't really had many sports opportunities for very long at all,” Epstein said. “You could argue there's a lot more opportunity for elite athlete couples to form than in the past. I'd guess it will only become more common as women get more athletic opportunities."
Seth and Stephen’s father may have been an NBA sharpshooter, but their mother, Sonya, played collegiate volleyball at Virginia Tech and also led her high school basketball team to two state championships. Sydel Curry, Stephen and Seth’s sister, followed her mother’s footsteps and played Division I volleyball at Elon University. (Speaking of supercouples, she wedded Golden State Warriors reserve guard Damion Lee last year).
The Plumlee brothers (Mason, Marshall and Miles) all reaching the NBA makes more sense when you find out their parents, Leslie and Perky, both played college basketball (Purdue and Tennessee Tech, respectively). Boris Diaw’s mother, Elisabeth, is in the French Basketball Hall of Fame while his father was a former Senegalese high-jump champion.
It’s tempting to focus on the father-son combos of NBA royalty, but the role of both parents, just like with the Currys, must be fully appreciated.
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Twenty-seven years ago, Stephen Curry watched his father compete in the family’s first 3-point shooting contest. It was the 1992 NBA All-Star Weekend, Vanilla Ice was the halftime act, and Dell was a sharpshooter for the budding Charlotte Hornets, a franchise born the same year as Stephen.
Stephen, just three years old at the time, was there on the sidelines with his father, getting a front-row view. He even sat on Dell’s lap during the contest and watched basketball greats like John Stockton and Drazen Petrovic compete against his father.
Nearly three decades later, Stephen continues to cement his family’s status as NBA royalty.
In October, after Stephen scored 29 points, Stephen and Dell surpassed Donny and Dolph Schayes as the second-most points of any father/son combination in NBA history. The Currys (not counting Seth) now have 28,420 points between them and only Kobe and Joe Bryant’s total of 38,895 points stand in front of them.
One day, the Currys may well surpass the Bryants as the leading father-son combo. But even if they get there, the Currys might not hold that title for long. Their father-son successors could be in Charlotte, lurking on the All-Star sidelines, just like Stephen and Dell 27 years ago.
With the Currys hosting the NBA, the All-Star Weekend in Charlotte is certainly a family affair. If current trends hold, the notion of Team LeBron, in time, may be more than an All-Star Weekend moniker.
