The first person Curry saw intentionally attempt a running three was Juan Carlos Navarro. He enunciates each name — “Juan. Carlos. Navarro.” — out of apparent respect for one of the players who has inspired him.
But outside of the All-Star Game, Curry hasn’t really participated in the trend. He hasn’t attempted a running three in a real game this year, and the last one he hit was in 2021 over then-Grizzlies guard De’Anthony Melton.
Warriors sharpshooter Buddy Hield said he’s been practicing the one-legged shot since training camp and drained one in October.
“You gotta find that fine line,” Hield said. “When you do it, if you make it, it’s good, but if you miss it, it’s a whole like, everybody says, ‘Buddy’s shooting a fucking stepback one-legged three.’ So you’ve got to make it if you do it.”
Sitting on the sideline after a morning shootaround in New Orleans, Curry watched the Tatum video again, then a third time — studied it, broke it down.
“I don’t know why he tried that,” Curry said. “Yeah, it’s almost like a two-foot stop would be harder to create rhythm, especially if the ball’s kind of hanging, so you just let the momentum take you into the shot. But that thing, that’s a ‘feel’ thing. I’m pretty sure he didn’t choreograph that before, like, ‘I’m about to shoot this one-legged three.’ As soon as he came off the screen, he knew how much space he had, and he needed to get a shot off. Ten on the clock, so … that’s nice.”
Curry doesn’t work specifically on his running three but tries a variety of shots randomly to work on different balance and footwork patterns. “I’ll sprinkle one in every once in a while,” he said.
Around the league, though, those sprinkles are becoming splashes.
“Everybody I show it to loves it,” Hauselman said. “I don’t think we’d see Dame [Lillard] and Steph and LeBron — we wouldn’t see these guys doing it without knowing it was viable.”
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