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A lot of professional athletes feed off of hate. It’s the fuel that they sometimes need to push them a little further. Golden State Warriors’ All-Star Steph Curry is no stranger to hate. Being passed on by major basketball programs in college, being labeled as “too small” to be in the league, and even critics challenging the validity of his MVP seasons are only a few things that have been thrown at Curry over the years.
Thus, Curry heard all of the hate. In this instance, he read it. Whenever Curry isn’t playing his best, he goes to the one place where he can guarantee he will uncover a lot of hate. That’s Twitter. According to former teammate, Andrew Bogut, Curry has a history of checking his social media mentions during halftime in search of inspiration.
Bogut Recalls Curry Checking Twitter
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Ex-Warrior and All-Star Andrew Bogut, who played with Curry for five seasons, recalls his moments playing with Curry and how he had this habit of checking his Twitter mentions during halftime whenever he felt like he was performing bad. According to Bogut, Curry would always find a way to motivate himself, and he would often find it in his Twitter mentions, per his Rogues Bogues podcast.
Steph’s one of the elite as far as preparing for games. He’s one of the unique ones where… he’ll check his mentions at halftime when he has a bad half. It’s kind of the craziest s*** I ever saw. When I first came into the league, phones were kind of frowned upon in the locker room for the most part. Now, it’s a f****** s*** show. If he had a bad half, he would go on social media, and then come out and drop 30.
It isn’t shocking that Curry knows he has hecklers on social media that talk about his game. It was obvious earlier this season that Curry was responding to his haters when he dropped a career-high of 62 points against the Portland Trail Blazers. Coincidentally, this performance came after comments were circulating that questioned Curry’s leadership and his capability to lead the Warriors to the playoffs.
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Curry doesn’t lack confidence, but understandably some nights you still need that extra boost to give you motivation. Even Michael Jordan would create fake scenarios in his head to make him play better. Curry regularly draws unwanted criticism although he has made five NBA FInals appearances. Even his back-to-back MVP awards doesn’t keep his critics from sounding off.
Curry is averaging 28.4 points per game this season. In a matchup against the Utah Jazz on Saturday, the guard passed Reggie Miller on the NBA’s all-time list for made three-pointers. Although Curry has a lot of haters on social media platforms, he knows how to use them to his advantage.
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