Someone once said “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” Strong quote. But before you put that on your Pinterest board, imagine when an individual decides to put both his unteachable talent and hard work into play.
He becomes NBA’s Most Valuable Player.
Stephen Curry earned those honors Sunday night. How did he get here?
For one, he had Brandon Payne of Accelerate Basketball in his corner. Payne, according to CBS Sports, along with his staff, put the MVP through a “multitude of different workouts for the past three summers.”
Not only did Curry’s work with Accelerate make him step up his game, but it inspired Curry to become a part owner of CoachUp—a company that connects athletes with private coaches in over 30 different sports.
CBS Sports, who got to catch up with Payne, asked if he was proud of Curry’s elevation this season. While pleased, Payne wasn’t too shocked.
Well, I am not that surprised because of the way he approaches his craft, said Payne. He is just a true professional and works so hard on a daily basis. When we first started working with Stephen, my staff and myself could tell that there was something about him. He is just very detailed oriented.
Am I proud? I am extremely proud to say that myself and Accelerate basketball have had a chance to be part of this. Honestly, you are also just proud to be associated with Stephen and the Curry family because they are such great people.
For him to have the kind of year that he’s had, where he’s been dominating everything, has been a lot of fun to watch and it makes me excited for the work we will continue to do this off season because we are going to continue to get better.
Of course, Curry’s balance is one of the most impressive skills that he possesses. Payne talked about his ability to make off-balance shots. You know, the ones we drool over.
Every drill that we do with everybody at Accelerate, involves challenging a player’s balance. When you challenge a player’s balance consistently through workouts, it becomes very easy for them to hit off-balance shots. When he trains with us, we will use a lighter resistance band and pull or bump him right before shots. We do anything that we can, to provide a little bit of contact to keep him in a game situation – we call it training in a game state of mind.
With Stephen his shooting form is very consistent, so the fact that he can take all of these off-balance shots is really aided by his shooting mechanics.
He finished up the interview by indicating that Curry is a great defender, which pretty much came to the forefront this past regular season.
In addition to Curry’s hard work and dedication over the past few years, it’s important to note that he learned a lot from his father, Dell, who played 14 years in the NBA. From an early age, Curry learned the work ethic necessary to succeed. It obviously paid off big time with the MVP award. Let’s see if he can now turn that into a rare championship for the upstart Warriors.
Photo: USA Today Sports