Since winning the 2015 NBA championship and league MVP award, Steph Curry has been unstoppable. He handles the ball like a magician and can sink shots miles away from the hoop. It feels like after every single game there’s some new crazy stat about him or about the Golden State Warriors, who are undefeated.
Scott Cacciola of The New York Times interviewed some top-of-the-line ballet dancers in the Bay Area about Curry’s game. While at first it does sound strange to combine basketball and ballet, in this case it makes perfect sense.
Here’s what one of those dancers said to The Times about the NBA guard:
“What I see the most when I watch Steph is the incredible coordination he has with his arms, his legs and the way he handles the ball,” Domitro, 29, said before drawing a comparison between their respective disciplines and referring to the way male dancers support women as they execute a lift or a jump. “We don’t use a ball, you know. We use a woman. But the way he dribbles the ball is the way we handle a woman on stage.”
And another dancer:
“There’s a certain sense of musicality to the way his body works,” Lustig said. “It looks like he’s moving in a slightly different dimension as everyone else, and I think that ties into his sheer speed and power and control — incredible, unbelievable control. And that’s what you want in a dancer.”
In another life, Curry, who is averaging 33 points, six assists and five rebounds, could have been a ballet dancer. If you can’t picture that in your head — Steph Curry, Cavalier in The Nutcracker — here’s a series of highlight Vines set to royalty-free ballet music.
Every move he makes is poetry in motion. The NBA is lucky to have him.
