De'Anthony Melton watched the 2016 Warriors-OKC Finals as a kid and idolized Steph Curry from afar. Now his teammate, Melton says being around Curry has deepened his respect for his work ethic, conditioning, and ability to stay elite in his late 30s.
Chapters
I got one more for you. You grew up watching OKC, obviously. So you probably remember when the Warriors and OKC met up in the Western Conference Finals. Woo-hoo! Why you shake your head like that? I still, I tell Monty to this day, I still don't know how the Warriors won the Finals. That's a great series, man. Game 6, Klay, obviously, and Steph doing his thing. But that was a battle. That to me is like, it's not just one of my favorite series with this core, but like my entire life of watching the NBA, it's one of my favorite series all time. Yeah. —but now that you're playing with Steph and he's still doing it at this age, at this level, what do you say to yourself, man? Do you tell your family like, "Man, this dude is— I had to go against him and I didn't understand it. Now that you're practicing—" He's amazing.
He's amazing. Like, that's all you can say sometimes. Like, some dudes like that, like, they continue to put the work in and they love the game so much that you see him day in and day out. Like, from now— before, I was seeing him on the outside looking in. Now I'm on the inside, you know what I mean? So it's like— Now just seeing the work he puts in, the everyday work, the consistency that he has, it's like, okay, you could see as to why he's continued on what he's continued on. And his ability to shoot the ball is just obviously out of this world. But his ability just to be conditioned and run around, his physicality and just be able to still be able to get open and get his shot off and stuff like that. And me averaging, I'm pretty much 30 now, like, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. I'm 37 years old, so like, just, you just gotta admire that type of stuff and just try to help out as much as possible.
Outside looking in, what was the perception then? Did you think it was like, come on, man, he's just shooting the ball, he's just running around?
Yeah, like, you just like, he just conditioned, he could shoot, but like, you don't, you didn't, I don't know, I don't know. 'Cause you don't think like, it's just like, at this high of a level to do this so many years. And like, I talk to GP still now to this day, like, I don't know how y'all won in 2020. I don't, I don't. I don't know why, how, or for what. Well, watch Steph in Game 4. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? But stuff like that. But like, '22, they had no business winning the championship. They had no business. Like, you know, there was so many teams better than them, but they just fought. They just willed their way and everybody played their role.
