“The Basketball 100” is the definitive ranking of the 100 greatest NBA players of all time from The Athletic’s team of award-winning writers and analysts, including veteran columnists David Aldridge and John Hollinger. This excerpt is reprinted from the book, which also features a foreword by Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.

“The Basketball 100” is available Nov. 26. Pre-order it here. Read David Aldridge’s introduction and all of the excerpts here.

It was a contradiction of the image he so meticulously cultivated. Yet it was an authentic glimpse of the driving force inside him. Psycho Steph Curry. The alter ego that has elevated him to unimaginable heights, landing him a seat at the table of basketball’s all-time best. And on the hallowed parquet of Boston, under the Celtics’ 17 banners, it emerged in Game 6 of the 2022 NBA Finals to punctuate his legend.

With the Warriors up 19, Draymond Green sped up the court on a fast break. Curry was trailing the play before veering left into Green’s periphery. Green bounced a pass to his left, angling it so Curry could catch it in stride. But Curry didn’t scoop up the pass and keep going toward the rim. Nor did he pass the ball to an open teammate while the Celtics’ defense was scattered. Curry was in psycho mode. So he pulled up right where he caught it.

The official NBA box score says it was 29 feet. Inside TD Garden, it felt like 50. It was so sudden. So far. So unnecessary. Curry’s momentum caused him to lean forward on the pull-up 3, giving it a shotput feel. It sliced through the anxious gasp of Celtics fans before thumping the back of the rim as it went through, putting the Warriors up 22. The net barely moved.

The crowd groaned with awe. The whistle blew for a Celtics timeout. And Curry walked to the other end of the court, staring at the crowd. No dancing celebration, as he’s known to do. No smiling or arms flailing. No dangling mouthpiece. This moment was different, authored by the psycho. Then, after staring and strutting, Curry held out his right hand and tapped his ring finger four times while calmly declaring, “Put a f—— ring on it.”

Still 6 minutes, 12 seconds remained—in the third quarter!—but Curry was calling the game over. Simultaneously taunting the crowd and declaring his greatness. It was one of the coldest NBA Finals flexes ever. Mostly because no one doubted him. If anyone knows the veracity of a cocky shooter, it’s Boston fans. They knew their Celtics had no answer for Curry.

For most of his career, Curry has kept that part of him beneath the surface. It shows up in his play but stays locked away behind his joviality. But he was on the cusp of his fourth championship. The critical chapter of his storied career was being authored in the home of the NBA’s most storied franchise. He’d win the Finals MVP, filling the hole in his resume. He did it without having the most talented roster around him, a criticism that grew from a whisper to a knock. He did it to silence the chorus of doubters who’d been caroling about his unworthiness since Kevin Durant joined the Warriors. No way he could keep the psycho in for this.

“What they gon’ say now?!” Curry yelled in the halls of TD Garden, his voice gravelly from crying, yelling, drinking, and smoking cigars. “WHAT THEY GON’ SAY NOW?!”

If the psycho has to have a birthday, it was April 28, 2013.

Or maybe the birth happened before and this was his coming of age. Nonetheless, the timeline of this NBA lore starts here. In Oakland. Against Denver. In the playoffs’ first round.

In the third quarter, with a four-point Warriors lead, Jarrett Jack ran a pick-and-pop with Carl Landry. Jack dribbled around a screen to the right wing and passed back to Landry at the top of the key. The Nuggets’ Corey Brewer scrambled to cover Landry. Brewer left Curry wide open.

Then suddenly, inconspicuously, the game clock froze. It was stuck on 6 minutes, 27 seconds. As if Brewer’s decision created a warp in the basketball universe. As if time itself wanted to pause and witness what was about to happen.

Landry whipped a pass to Curry, who caught it and gave a pump fake to charging Denver forward Wilson Chandler. With the defender in the air, Curry stepped to his left, like he was avoiding a puddle, to reposition himself in open space of the left corner. Then he jacked up a 3 right in front of the Nuggets’ bench.

“It was the magnitude of the moment,” Curry said years later. “First playoff series. Unreal atmosphere. We were making a third-quarter run. I don’t know what it was about that moment. Just, I was feeling it. I could feel everybody behind me. I don’t know. It was like the perfect storm. Feeling their presence, the rhythm of the shot. Everything felt perfect. And I did it.”

That he did. With his shot still ascending toward its apex, Curry debuted his signature flex. He turned 180 degrees. When the ball splashed through the net, Curry was facing the suddenly silenced Nuggets bench, his back to the very basket at which he aimed.

Even now, a decade later, he doesn’t know why he did it. Something just moved him. He can’t even remember what was said, just that he heard the voice of Denver center JaVale McGee and felt the shadow of the Nuggets’ animosity breathing down his neck. He can’t articulate why this was his retort. That something was the psycho inside, the alter ego. Curry’s story is incomplete without this presence.

The idea of a legend has lost some of its luster in modernity. Not because greatness is less prominent, but because little is left to the imagination. Everything is recorded, preserved for consumption, observable. But legends, real legends, are born of scarce witnesses. They survive through storytelling. They grow as time spreads between the moment and the oration.

Stephen Curry added 2022 NBA Finals MVP to his impressive career accolades. (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)

But feelings are difficult to behold through modern mediums. The emotion of experience doesn’t always translate through highlights, leaving lore with a job to do.

Stephen Curry’s accomplishments are wholly impressive. Four-time NBA champion. Two-time MVP, one of 12 players to win back-to-back MVPs (2015, ’16), including first unanimous selection in ’16, when he led the league in points (30.1), steals (2.1), and free-throw percentage (.908). Only Rick Barry has led the league in all three categories and never in the same season.

The preeminent and premier 3-point shooter, who sets a record every time he makes one. At .910 at the end of the 2024 season, Curry is the career leader in free-throw percentage, as well. It should be no surprise that he’s among the top 10 in career true shooting percentage. He’s also the only one under 6 foot 5.

He’s the catalyst for the resurrection of an NBA franchise to greatness. Six NBA Finals and four titles prove it.

The 2022 championship, and the corresponding NBA Finals MVP, represented a mountain he crested. For all he’s accomplished, Curry still found himself prodded by critics and doubters. His first championships were undercut in the minds of many by the injuries LeBron James’s Cavaliers sustained, leaving Cleveland undermanned. Curry’s next two titles didn’t solidify his status, instead added to the dissension of his critics, many of whom saw Durant as the best player. Then the Warriors endured a rash of injuries, Durant left, and Curry was projected to be done at the championship level. With no superteam to exalt him, no lucky breaks to pave his road, and he was well into his 30s, which many suspected he’d be past the vitality of his prime.

Fuel for the psycho.

What is often misunderstood about Curry is how much he feeds off the anti-narratives. He’s characterized by the joy of his game, but he dominates with his motivated spirit of audaciousness. Now he’s got the stats, the accomplishments, and the answer to his critics.

But Curry holds an even rarer space because he is truly legendary, in the traditional sense. His game has an element best captured by the awe of the storyteller.

“I love Steph so much,” Allen Iverson once said on Complex Sports’ Load Management podcast. “That’s why I made him my point guard. I think he changed the game sort of like I did. Greatest shooter that will ever play the game—that’s what I think. The greatest basketball player I’ve seen with a jumper and handles like that. I’m just a big Steph Curry fan.”

Wilt Chamberlain left people speechless as a mobile giant. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar astonished with a signature shot that rarely missed. Michael Jordan, and Dr. J before him, took everyone’s breath away by walking on air. Magic Johnson mesmerized with passes suggesting he had another set of eyes somewhere on his head. Their special greatness, the hold they had on viewers, extends beyond the data explaining their worth.

Curry is of their ilk. A mere mortal in stature who slays giants from a distance. And the trademark of his greatness, the autograph authenticating his legend, is his look-away 3. Nothing trumpets his unique brilliance like being so sure a long-distance shot is going in that he doesn’t even see it go in. He stamps his mastery of basketball’s most pivotal act by declaring the absence of doubt when he shoots.

“He’s incredibly arrogant on the floor and humble off the court,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I think that’s a really powerful combination.”

This is the psycho’s work. Not the meek fella who shocks people with his down-to-earthness. Not the joyous kid who bubbles to the surface when he plays. Not the appreciative second-generation player anchored by his respect for the privilege and the fraternity.

When Curry jacks a 3-pointer and turns his back on the result, it’s a wink from the maniac who lives inside his humble spirit. Make no mistake. Curry has reached such elevation, forced his way among the greats of all time, because he’s a merciless and relentless competitor. More than that, he is a savage who takes pleasure in destruction.

Such a personality was crafted out of necessity. Being smaller and overlooked all of his basketball life created the drive that got him here. Because of his slightness, because of the low expectations, his validation had to be that much more emphatic. Something Curry learned very early on was to vanquish doubt. He couldn’t just put up a good case for himself. He had to make questioning him a ridiculous notion.

He didn’t want to be a good 3-point shooter, he wanted to be the greatest. He didn’t want to be just a shooter, he wanted to be a monster. He didn’t want to win, he wanted to collect rings. And he doesn’t want to just make plays, he wants to dance on graves.

The greatest ones have such a streak in them. That deep conviction fuels their work ethic, that makes them want the biggest stage. Take it from one of the all-time psychos in Kobe Bryant.

“I see a calmness about him,” Bryant once said about Curry. “I see a calmness about him. And I think it’s something that a lot of players don’t understand. So I think it’s very hard for the fans to understand what I’m saying. Because most players don’t get it. But there’s a serious calmness about him, which is extremely deadly. Because he’s not up. He’s not down. He’s not contemplating what just happened before or worrying about what’s to come next. He’s just there.

“And when a player has the skills, when he’s trained himself to have the skills to be able to shoot, dribble left, right, etc., and then you mix that with his calmness and poise, and you have a serious, serious problem on your hands.”

Curry keeps the video of Bryant’s assessment in his phone. Bryant, as maniacal as they come, validates Curry’s psycho side. It’s an honor to be seen by Kobe.

Initially, that streak was hard to spot beyond the infectious smile, the positive vibes, and the familial persona that have come to be Curry’s brand. But his teammates, his opponents know it’s there. His ardent followers love it about him. It takes some maniac tendencies to shoot from 30 feet with such supreme confidence; to lead a revolution against an entire construct, against tradition, against preconceived notions about a 6-foot-3 point guard with a baby face and his father’s craft. To become a real legend requires first being audacious. In 20 years, Curry will be talked about with excitement reserved for the most legendary. Like today’s elders talk about Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell, and how their children revere Larry Bird and Charles Barkley. The technologically literate future will have all the advanced metrics at their disposal.

But they won’t convey the insanity of how Curry in his prime shot it from so far and so accurately. How he was so terrifying that the geometry of the game changed, a generation started to follow him like disciples, and defenses devoted all their resources to stopping him. How a collection of NBA greats don’t know the championship thrill because Curry was inevitable.

They will tell of the psycho who just stepped back further, shot it more often, made even more 3s. And, as the legend will go, he didn’t even have to look.

Career stats (through 2023-24): G: 956, Pts.: 24.8, Reb.: 4.7, Ast.: 6.4, Win Shares: 135.2, PER: 23.6
Achievements: NBA MVP (’15, ’16), NBA Finals, MVP (’22), 10-time All-NBA, 10-time All-Star, NBA champ (’15, ’17, ’18, ’22), Olympic gold (‘24)

Excerpted from “The Basketball 100” published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2024 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)