Former NBA wing Eddie Johnson shared that Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry nearly beat him in a game of basketball when Curry was only seven years old and Johnson was playing for the Charlotte Hornets.
“I played this kid when he was seven years old in his driveway, when I was playin’ with the Charlotte Hornets,” Johnson said. “I was over there hangin’ out with his dad Dell Curry, and he said, ‘Eddie, I bet Steph can beat you.’ Like, ‘Right, whatever.'”
Johnson shared that he went out to the driveway to play, only to find himself in trouble after the younger Curry started shooting shots “from the street” and making them.
“Man, I look up — we playin’ a game to 10 — this dude up 7-nothing,” Johnson said. “I said, ‘Hold up now.’ Now, I’m in the NBA now. I’m one of the top shooters in the game, okay? So, I was like, ‘Hold up.’ Man, I went old-man style on him, man. I started backin’ him down, layin’ it up. … I won the game. He was hot.”
Johnson played with the Hornets for just one season during his 17-year NBA career, but he was an effective complementary player for Charlotte. He averaged 11.5 points per game in 73 appearances with the team during the 1993-94 regular season and showcased an impressive ability to score the ball from 3-point range.
In a time when the 3-point shot wasn’t as crucial to NBA offenses as it is today, Johnson shot an impressive 39.3 percent from deep on 2.1 attempts per game with Charlotte. He averaged the third-most 3s made and 3s attempted per game of any player on his team that season.
Johnson might have been ahead of his time in terms of his penchant for taking and making shots from deep. The younger Curry, on the other hand, has a solid case as the greatest 3-point shooter that the game of basketball has ever seen.
After all, he has made by far the most 3-point shots of any player in NBA history. He has 3,747 made 3s to his name currently, and Ray Allen ranks second all-time in that regard with 2,973 made triples.
The younger Curry has also buried at least 10 shots from deep in a single game on numerous occasions. He hit a career-high 13 3s in a matchup versus the New Orleans Pelicans back in 2016. On 25 occasions, he has finished a game with at least 10 triples.
Considering the younger Curry showed off his 3-point shooting chops as a child against someone who played in the NBA at the time in Johnson, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he developed a unique knack for scoring the ball from deep as he got older.
