Kevin Durant recently raved about his Golden State Warriors teammate Stephen Curry's selflessness, via United Press International's Alex Butler. Durant and Curry, the league's last two Most Valuable Player award winners, have had to adjust their games to get used to each other's presence this season, and it would not have worked so well if Curry had been concerned about his individual statistics.
From UPI:
"I don't think either one of us look at it as being the star of this team," Durant said. "I think that's what makes it easier to play together and we are just out there trying a good brand of basketball and trying to have fun...Play off of each other, use each other. You need your teammates if you want to be successful. We realize that and it just makes it easy."
"He [Curry] has no ego. It's really unbelievable. How big he is as a person, as a player, and to not really care about stuff that everybody else cares about outside our group is pretty remarkable. It's different. When you see people like that."
I would nitpick the "no ego" thing -- as Klay Thompson said about Curry years ago, "No humble man can take those shots." Curry knows how great he is, and he approaches every game believing he's the best player on the court, believing that every shot he releases should go in. Curry wouldn't have become the player he is without some sort of ego.
Part of what makes Curry special, though, is his desire to be the best teammate and best player he possibly can. He assured Durant that he wanted to play with him, and for much of the early part of the season, he held back in terms of his aggressiveness on the court. Curry and Durant have found a much better balance now, and they've done it within the confines of Steve Kerr's offensive system.
Kerr had a particular style of basketball in mind when he came to the Warriors, and it helped not only turn Curry into the back-to-back MVP he is today, but attract Durant to the Bay Area. When they signed Durant, the idea was not to have him supplant Curry as the face of the franchise, but to allow them to make each other better. The way they celebrate each other's highlight plays, it looks like the two of them genuinely enjoy playing together, even if there was an adjustment period. If you tried this experiment with a different pair of superstars, it wouldn't necessarily work as smoothly.
