Written by Rob Mahoney

Compiled by Mo Jing

In the latest offensive efficiency red and black list, Seth Curry exchanged jump shots per jump shot. His 1.24 points ranked first in the red list, and his offensive efficiency ranked first in the league among all players who took 300 jump shots this season.

Seth Curry knew he would never be the focal point of an NBA offense like his brother Stephen, so he looked to his father, Dell, as a role model. Through his own hard work and transformation, he became the perfect blend of both: the role player every superstar wants to have.

When joining the Philadelphia 76ers, Seth knew his role on the court very well, finding his position on the outside and doing his best to create more offensive space for the inside. "You can see him creating a lot of space for our offense," 76ers head coach Doc Rivers noted earlier this season. Drawing more outside defense, creating space inside, and transitioning the ball into the basket in a timely manner. Inside, etc., these are the things Ben Simmons should be doing.

Of course, the fact that Simmons has not only been absent from the lineup for so long, but has yet to be traded, highlights the deficit the team must contend with. The ongoing impasse between Simmons and the Sixers, or indeed the Sixers and their potential trade partners, has entered its fourth month, leaving Simmons' teammates with no choice but to grit their teeth and keep working hard on the court.

For some, like Tobias Harris, this "inherited" responsibility now hangs in the balance like a curse, something fans have grown to believe simply because he has been unable to take on more responsibility. Reasons to boo him at home. For others, like Seth Curry, it's a chance to go beyond the limits of their usual roles.

Seth was originally brought to Philadelphia as a "supporting player" when "The Great" Embiid, one of the most dominant stars of his generation, politely informed the front office that he wanted to play with Play together with teammates who create space. "I feel like we don't have what we need, except shooting-wise," Embiid said. So the Sixers not only traded for one of the best long-range shooters in the league, but one of the best long-range shooters in league history. one. When Seth has enough space to shoot the ball in his hands, he can be compared to almost any player, even his older brother Steph, who has a higher three-point shooting percentage in his career. In fact, since joining the NBA full-time in 2015, only one player (Joe Harrison) has scored a more efficient jump shot than Seth.

All of which means there may be no one better suited to draw defensive attention away from the team's best player. Seth did the same for Luka Doncic before making room for Embiid. Even before he teamed up with Doncic, his shooting ability was already being compared to that of Damian Lillard. If a team already has a superstar, Seth's name is likely to be on the whiteboard in the general manager's office because such an efficient jump shooter seems to be such a good fit with any player.

Morey, the current chairman of the 76ers, tried to create such a lineup when he led the Rockets. However, when Houston planned to sign Seth as a free agent in 2019, he did not rush to agree, but consulted his father, former Sixth Man of the Year Dell Curry, and his father-in-law, also known as His current head coach Rivers finally chose to sign with the Mavericks.

Seth only stayed in Dallas for one season before Morey used Richardson and a second-round pick to bring him to Philadelphia.

Seth and the 76ers are so suitable. Like his father, he can easily adapt to various tactical arrangements, regardless of whether the ball can stay in his hands for a long time. He's able to attack his opponents at the right time and pass the ball to teammates with better timing. He said: "I don't think I need to play so much with the ball, I just need to seize the right scoring opportunities."

But as long as Simmons' problem is not resolved, this purely supporting role will not be possible. Doesn't exist. What makes Seth so attractive to the 76ers is not only that his shooting can open up space for Embiid, but also that it can make up for Simmons' shortcomings. Seth was once the perfect bridge between Embiid and Simmons, and the only answer the 76ers could find to solve Simmons' shooting holes, until the relationship between Simmons and the front office soured, upsetting the balance.

Now, as a supporting player, Seth has his chance to try to become a star player. But Seth doesn't think so, he doesn't seem to care about the comparison.

He said: "I know what kind of player I am. I don't really need to strive for additional accolades or external recognition to validate who I am."

In 2014, After traveling from freezing Canton, Ohio, to even colder White Plains, New York, Erie Bayhawks coach Bill Peterson set up an impromptu video conference with his star players on a couch in the lobby of the Economy Hotel.

Seth plans to play two more years in the D League if necessary, but his patience with minor league basketball is wearing thin. He had to audition for several NBA teams throughout his first season. As he went through dozens of these hotel interview scenarios, it became increasingly difficult for Seth to imagine how long the road to basketball's highest level would be.

Peterson once said that when he first saw Seth play, he knew that Seth was an NBA player, and what he had to do was to help him successfully open the door to the NBA. .

The philosophy Peterson instilled in his young players was defense and the ability to pass the ball. Seth must show the NBA's talent evaluators that he has the physical strength to hold his own in the world's most uncompromising basketball league. To that end, Peterson had an odd suggestion for Seth's pregame workout routine. "If you don't mind, let's do some push-ups in there," Peterson said. Seth, who had just played three seasons at Duke before going undrafted, reacted with disbelief. Peterson told him: "You can do this at home at night, it doesn't matter. But the fact that you have to be seen, it gives you a different difference from other players."

Seth tried one set of push-ups in Westchester and another in Santa Cruz. Just a few weeks later, the BayHawks received a rare visit from a Spurs scout who, after watching Seth warm up, came to ask Peterson what was going on with Seth's push-ups. Sure, it's a gimmick, but it's also a starting point for a conversation about Curry's training and development. This is the beginning of a struggle with perception. Seth didn't progress well enough to move from the D-League to the NBA. He just had to convince NBA scouts and team executives to look at what was already there.

"Honestly, I had to play at a certain level for a year and a half, two years, just to show scouts who I was," Seth said. "But there was never a blip on my radar."

Teams would call Curry with a 10-day contract, only to cancel all of his practices and barely let him participate in games. His easygoing demeanor didn't exactly betray dissatisfaction; after all, the value of being a "temp" didn't matter in a week and a half of work. So Seth would join an NBA club with the intention of blending in without any drama, and then be quietly sent back to where he came from without much of a chance to show anything at all. "That's been the story of my life, my whole career," Seth said. "I had to prove it and not get an opportunity." Although his father's NBA pedigree and his brother's influence have won the Curry family NBA recognition, but Seth didn't get a real NBA opportunity until he was 25 years old.

Peterson once begged the BayHawks' owner, the Orlando Magic, to give Seth a chance to play. Orlando was terrible that season and had one of the worst guard rotations in the league. Peterson said: "I had a big fight with him. I didn't want to say his name because he was still in the NBA. I was really furious for about 30 minutes. I said do you even know what the hell you are doing? ." The "way" Seth plays for the Magic is to suit up for them in training camp and the coaching staff just keeps him on the sidelines.

When Seth finally got his first full-season contract with the Kings in 2015, his goal was to be a quality role player and never give his team a reason to cut him. He doesn't want a job, he wants a career. He said: "I just said to myself: You have to work hard for the goal consistently, you have to do it every night."

Although things have changed dramatically for Seth since then Changes, but he still looks like a player who entered the league through the back door. Seth said: "For a player like me, I don't have the ball most of the game, so I can't waste opportunities, I'm not going to be like Steph or James Harden who can take 20-30 shots a game. I Gotta get the most efficient return on my 10 to 15 shots."

However, Seth's 3-point attempts, by minutes and possessions, have remained essentially the same. Part of that is because Seth appreciates every shot he takes more than ever.

He said: "I know the respect I will get every time I catch the ball and look at the basket." The opposing guard will immediately interfere, in which case his brother may Choose to move to another position and quickly release a 3-point shot. But Seth prefers to take the ball inside the three-point line and complete the shot in a safe manner. The results are almost irrefutable, with Seth hitting 58.2 percent of his mid-range jumpers this season, the highest mark in the NBA's Advanced Stats database.

If Seth had always had a shadow of Stephen in his heart, it wasn't like this now. Seth never really wanted to be his brother. When Davidson recruited him to play with his older brother, Seth chose to go to Liberty, where he became the nation's top-scoring freshman. Then he gave up all that, giving up more possessions and taking more shots to transfer to Duke, where he could play with players at a higher level. Seth has always followed his own path.

Stephen Curry told TA's Shams: "We had different journeys, different roads to get here. Obviously, I'm looking at his number and trying to watch him play every night as much as I can. He's playing the best basketball I've ever seen."

During his time in Philadelphia, the 76ers were 25 in the regular season and playoffs when Seth scored at least 20 points. Win 5 and lose. After one such game against the Eagles last playoffs, he wore a sweatshirt that read: "In Time Dreams Bloom." Adding a third big scorer on the wing alongside Embiid and Harris turns the Sixers, currently ninth on offense, from a decent team to a dangerous one.

Striking this balance is more complicated than it seems, because it's never clear whether Seth's primary job at a given moment is to score a basket or draw the defense away. "Obviously, we want to be able to get more shots, but it has to do with our offensive threat and keeping that continuity," Seth said. "When you play with a guy like Embiid, every jump shot is missed. It's a pity because every errant shot can be converted into a pass to Embiid in the paint, who has greater certainty. As a colleague of Niang, the team's sixth man, put it, his role as a shooter is to "make sure my guy doesn't get in Embiid's way so Embiid can go score." But Seth is not. Niang, not Danny Green, not Furkan Korkmaz - he is both the best shooter on the roster and an increasingly important creator off the dribble. He shares the team's primary ball duties with Embiid and Maxey, and now has nearly twice as much ball in his hands as he did in Dallas.

The current 76ers will look for Seth by passing the ball. The reason is simple: the 76ers and Embiid need him.

When Seth sees himself on video these days, he seems to see his father, and even sometimes their facial expressions are eerily consistent. "The older I get, the more I act like him." As a young boy, Seth loved attending Raptors practices with his father, where he practiced shooting with his older brother and played with Tracy McGrady and Carter. What he didn't know at the time was that Dier had spent his entire career playing from the fringes after spending his first three seasons changing teams and finding his place in the league.

During that time, Dell found patience. He learned how to play, and as a spot-up shooter, he was able to space the floor for big-name stars like Larry Johnson and Alonzo Muning, and later for attackers like Tracy McGrady and Carter.

"I think at a young age, he just thought: Hey, my dad is in the NBA," Dell said. "A 10-year-old Seth didn't know what it really meant to win and keep that job. A few years later, after Seth finally made it from the D-League to the NBA, he added his name to his father's jersey number. The No. 30 Raptors jersey was one of three Dell throwbacks he owned when the time came. Seth wore the same number, in a slightly different color, when he started his NBA career with the Kings.

When Seth was traded to Philadelphia, Dell's number 30 was already taken, so Seth. The choice of No. 31 has proven auspicious, allowing Seth to return to the same team for consecutive seasons for the first time in his career. To commemorate the occasion, he asked his coach to. A smaller, lighter Embiid was sweating on the court in training last offseason.

This is working toward complementarity.

A successful NBA role player does two things, either makes your team's best player better or helps your team survive with an incomplete roster. Both.

The current NBA rules allow role players like Seth to make more confrontational actions. Now, more teams are starting to play small lineups, so zone defense tactics are being replaced. Use it a lot. Pick-and-roll, switch defense, supplementary defense, there is always someone in front of you, which means you have to constantly pass the ball to get opportunities, but the mobility of the small lineup will make too many passes pass.

Just like Dell said about his younger son, Seth is not afraid of the current popular defensive strategies in the league. He can attack with the ball, and he can also deceive the defense, take a step forward, and complete the shot. More importantly, his mind is very clear. He is always observing Embiid's position. He can pass the good ball that a defender should pass. Therefore, Seth is not a simple shooter, and this attribute will Substantively changing the defensive strategy.

If Seth can trick opponents into taking more frequent and aggressive jump shots, then he has really found room for improvement. Seth's height (6-foot-2) seems to affect his ceiling, but VanVleet proves that this is not a problem. He and VanVleet are so similar in height, speed and shooting, and VanVleet is so similar in height, speed and shooting. Fleet has grown into an All-Star caliber guard.

If Seth works hard in this direction, can he still be "on par" with the team's superstar Seth Curry? Of course, whether he will work in the direction of VanVleet still depends on his view of basketball.

Any attempt to increase Seth's offensive range will always contradict his self-positioning. The fact that he's a shooter with a conscience makes him a perfect match for teammates like Embiid from the start.

Philadelphia built its entire rotation with this in mind. This season, Embiid has only played 59 minutes without Seth, and Seth has played only 125 minutes without Seth. In comparison, the two have played about 1,000 minutes together. minute. This stat becomes even more telling when you factor in the time Seth was sidelined with the ankle injury he was dealing with. That's how Rivers uses him.

The relationship between Seth and Rivers is a little more complicated than the average relationship between a player and a coach. Seth and Rivers' son, Augustin Rivers, played together in the backcourt at Duke. Seth and Rivers' daughter Callie married in 2019, about a year before Seth was traded to Philadelphia. Callie is a contributor on The Ringer reality television podcast. According to Seth himself, the news that he was traded to Philadelphia was first revealed to him by his wife.

According to Second Spectrum, Seth's presence has had a positive effect on Embiid's scoring efficiency. Likewise, Embiid's ball handling has made Seth the most effective scorer on jump shots this season. When Embiid plays more of a point guard or interior rush role, he can get to the paint more comfortably because he knows he has Seth next to him, a reliable outside shooter who never gets cold feet, ready to serve at any time." "Firefighting" role.

According to Synergy Sports, Seth has played more games for Philadelphia as a defender than any other team this season, and the probability of him being replaced in the 76ers is also very low. This is I can feel it intuitively. Whenever Embiid encounters some trouble on the court, he will think of Seth, and he is more comfortable playing with Seth.

Seth is savvy enough to know that playing a role is not just a matter of playing well. He plays in a way that is compatible with the most important players in the entire organization. It makes superstars want to play with you, whether it's spacing the floor like Embiid or picking and rolling like Doncic.

Seth said: "As a top-10 star in the league, you have to adapt to the role they want you to play on that team, not that team will adapt to you. I'm not complaining The role you take on, it's about figuring out what's best for the team, whether it's being on the bench, taking care of the ball, guarding the other team's defender, guarding the other team's wing, whatever it is."

< p> Every game is another opportunity to find perfect harmony.

Seth said: "For me, no matter where I go, I can re-accept my role. I think a player who has played in the NBA for 16 years and has never been a starter is equally worthy of our Respect. So, in my heart, even if my father is not an All-Star, even if he is not the best player in the league, I still respect him very much. He is my role model. I have wanted to have a long career since I was a child.

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What we want to pass on is to follow our own hearts!

End