Warriors’ Stephen Curry Used Technology to Shrink Basket to Help Improve Shot

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

When you’re Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, you have to think outside the box in order to hone your shooting stroke.

Curry’s personal coach, Brandon Payne, told the Wall Street Journal‘s Ben Cohen that he and the two-time MVP were looking for “swishes within swishes.” To that end, they worked alongside a researcher, Rachel Marty Pyke, and used her shot-tracking data to effectively shrink the size of the basket for Curry to target:

“A shot that strays nearly 5 inches away from the center of the hoop in either direction can still be a swish. But that margin of error in his left-right positioning was much too high for Curry. So last summer, as he shot threes in the NBA offseason, he gave himself only 3 inches of wiggle room. He was even more demanding when shooting from closer: Curry’s leeway for his free throws was 2 inches.”

The approach hasn’t yielded great results just yet. Through 13 games, Curry is hitting 38.7 percent of his three-pointers. He has never made less than 40 percent over a full season.

But sometimes perfection requires taking a step back.

Tiger Woods changed his swing shortly after winning the 1997 Masters. He didn’t win another major tournament until 1999, but altering his swing laid the ground work for his “Tiger Slam across 2000 and 2001.

Curry is already one of the NBA’s greatest ever shooter, and younger players are already looking to emulate his style. Perhaps the 33-year-old will manage to find a new level by failing to be content with the status quo.