Exclusive: Dell Curry on Hornets, remarriage and the time Steph nearly quit basketball

Although Dell Curry is now known mostly for being the father of two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steph Curry, that’s not fair to Dell’s own stellar NBA career.

Known for his 3-point sharpshooting at a time when the NBA was far less enamored with that long-distance shot, the elder Curry had a 16-year pro career that included 10 years as a player for the Hornets from 1988-98. He was the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 1994 and retired as the Charlotte Hornets’ all-time leading scorer. He and Muggsy Bogues both came to the Hornets via the 1988 NBA expansion draft and quickly became fan favorites in Charlotte.

Curry, the subject of our latest “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” interview, has served as the Charlotte Hornets’ color analyst on the team’s TV broadcasts since 2009. He’s careful to call games when the Hornets play either of his sons — Steph or Seth — as objectively as possible, often referring to them as “Curry.”

Now 59, Dell Curry grew up in rural Virginia and has lived in Charlotte since his 2002 retirement from the NBA. We conducted this interview in between sessions at a basketball camp he has conducted for decades at Charlotte’s Levine Jewish Community Center.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. For a much fuller version, check out the Dell Curry episode on the “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” podcast.

Scott Fowler: What was it like growing up in Grottoes, Virginia?

Dell Curry: I had two loving parents. I was the youngest of five and in a very small town. Sports was really my outlet. Being in the house with four older sisters, my dad took me everywhere with him. My parents, I saw them get up and go to work at General Electric every day. They went to work together. They came home together. We had the biggest garden in the area. I really did not know how little we had.

My parents did the very best they could and they gave us all the resources and encouragement that they could just to be who we were. ... When I got in trouble my dad took away my shotgun, my fishing pole and my basketball, and that hurt.

SF: Where did you learn the outside shot you would become known for?

DC: It was in the backyard. I visited my mom a few weeks ago and that goal is still there. My dad put my goal on a telephone pole that had a light connected to it, so I could shoot baskets all hours of the day and night. Sometimes the neighbors would call my mom and dad and say: “Would you stop Dell from shooting? It’s 11 o’clock at night!”

It’s true that my sisters would lock me out of the house sometimes when my mom and dad went to work. They’d feed me lunch first. But being from a small town with not a lot of boys around, I just shot basketball all day.

And then my high school coach lived on a dairy farm with a goal inside the barn, and that goal was mine for the taking, anytime I wanted. He’d often come pick me up, bring me to his farm and let me shoot for hours at a time. There were cows everywhere.

SF: When you call the Hornets playing a game against one of your sons now, a lot of times you just call them “Curry” instead of by their first names. Why?

DC: It was tough at the start. When Steph was a rookie and I watched his games at home, I only watched him. When I found myself doing that during Hornets’ games, I was like: “Hey, you gotta back up. You gotta watch the other nine guys on the court too.”

I do call them “Curry” most of the time because they’re on the opposing team. But I remember that my mom is watching and she’s gonna call me after the game and let me know how I did, so sometimes I call them Steph and Seth, too.

They’ve been really good players in the league, so it’s easier to call their games now. They know the game. I can be a dad and a fan, and not so much a coach to them anymore. They have their own families now and I know how it is. Most of the time, I leave them alone. We’ll talk once a week or so.

When Dell Curry moved to Charlotte

SF: For most people in the Carolinas, you came onto their radar when you joined the Hornets. What was that like?

DC: I was very fortunate to join the Hornets, although I wasn’t so sure at the time. I was playing my second year in Cleveland and we had a really good team with Brad Daugherty, Mark Price and Ron Harper. The general manager, Wayne Embry, told me it was between me and Craig Ehlo, as to who was going to be protected (from being picked by the Hornets in the expansion draft).

You could protect eight people on your 12-man roster, and we knew whichever one he didn’t protect would get drafted. Embry told me that he thought Ehlo had a better chance of guarding Michael Jordan. So you know how that worked out.

SF: Would you have done better than Ehlo did guarding Jordan during that famous 1989 playoff series between Cleveland and Chicago?

DC: No. But I would have scored more than Ehlo.

But it all worked out. In Charlotte, we were a bunch of young guys trying to figure it out in the NBA and we all figured it out together. To be the first guy drafted and then the last guy to leave from the original team, I think is really special. And it’s the reason why I stayed here. I love Charlotte. The city really wrapped their arms around me and my family. So this is home now.

SF: In 1995, when the Hornets’ core was still intact, Charlotte’s front office got in a contract dispute with Alonzo Mourning and ultimately traded Zo to Miami. What would that team have been like if it had been able to hold onto Mourning?

DC: We were such a close-knit team. We had good chemistry. We knew each other like the back of our hands.

And we knew that was going to be the turning point of whether we could have an opportunity to possibly win a title was whether we could keep Zo, who was just just coming into his own. We thought, “Hey, man, we still got to go through Chicago and New York and Boston.” But if you want to get there, you’ve got to keep your core together. And we had a great core.

So it was very disappointing when that didn’t happen. We knew we still had a decent team. But losing a guy like Alonzo Mourning changes the outlook of what kind of team you can become.

SF: Was the 3-point shot available in your college basketball career at Virginia Tech?

DC: No, it was not. I would have scored a ton more points — Bimbo Coles would not be the leading scorer at Virginia Tech if I had had a 3-point shot. I played one game vs. Cincinnati as a trial game, and I was 4-for-7. I thought, “This is easy! Can I redshirt and come back and play another year of college?”

SF: Nowadays NBA teams are always looking for either a layup or a 3-pointer. But it wasn’t like that in the 1990s, was it?

DC: No, the 3-point shot really wasn’t a big part of the game. I look back at some of the video of the late ‘80s and ‘90s and the entire game was played inside the 3-point arc.

And (Hornets play-by-play broadcaster) Eric Collins reminds me of that every single Hornets broadcast. “This day in 1992, Dell Curry, how many threes did you take?” I’ll go, “Six.” He goes: “Two.” I mean, teams would take 8-10-12 in a game. Steph takes that in a quarter. It’s really transformed.

SF: Kemba Walker broke your all-time scoring record with the Hornets in 2018. Were you sorry to see that one go?

DC: I was. I would be lying if I didn’t say that. I was sorry to see that one go.

I really enjoyed that, as a broadcaster and still a member of the Hornets organization, to be that leading scorer. I could walk with my chest stuck out a little bit. Yeah, that hurt me when Kemba broke my record. He’s a great guy. I couldn’t ask for a better guy to do it. But it hurt.

The time Steph Curry nearly quit

SF: It was in the 1990s when Steph and Seth would accompany you to Hornets practices, right?

DC: They loved going to practice. I’d say “OK, boys, you can go to practice and shoot around, but when practice starts you’ve got to go get a Gatorade. You can hold the basketball as long as it doesn’t hit the floor. But you’ve got to pay attention. We’re professionals, this is a professional team and your dad is at work.”

I don’t know how much they got that at a young age. But I think as they got older and started coming into the locker room and found out how hard the preparation was for each game. I think the light turned on, like: “Hey, this is a job. This is work. It’s a game but it’s serious stuff.”

And I think that really helped them get to where they are now, learning the work ethic, knowing how serious the game was.

SF: Didn’t you have to radically change Steph’s shot one summer while he was in high school?

DC: Yes. He was a small kid, about 5-8 and 115 pounds, when he finished his sophomore year at Charlotte Christian. ... And to get his shot off, he would load up from his waist and just kind of push it up. It went in and it would work in high school. But he goes, “Dad, I think I want to go to college.” I’m like, “All right, we got to change your shot.” And he goes: “What?”

I said: “Yeah, we gotta move your shot above your head, or you’re gonna get it blocked.” It was a really tough summer. He was real close to like: “I’m not doing this. I’m not playing basketball.”

But I’m like, “Son, you got to stick with it. It’ll work.” He did, but it was a month or so before he was strong enough to shoot outside the paint.

SF: So Steph actually thought about giving up basketball?

DC: It was tough. He’s like, “I can’t do it. It’s too hard.”

But thank goodness, he trusted old dad.

SF: When did Steph come into his own?

DC: Probably when he got to Davidson. He was a good-to-great high school player. Didn’t meet the eye (test). Small. Knew the game. Could really shoot. Was too unselfish. ... But when he got to Davidson, that light really went on.

And Bob McKillop: He’s in the Curry circle for life. How he coached Steph, challenged him every game and trusted him after having 13 turnovers in the first game that he played in his career.

But I think somewhere after his freshman year and start of his sophomore year, a couple of games in and I’m like, “OK, he’s got a shot.” McKillop saw it before me. He told me when he was a freshman: “Your son is gonna make a lot of money playing this game.” And I went, “OK, maybe in Europe.”

But as the games went on, I’m like: “Coach, he’s got a good eye.”

SF: In most families, Seth Curry would be an absolute superstar. He became a big-time player at Duke and then made a ton of money in the NBA. But he is also in Steph’s shadow. How has he handled that?

DC: Seth is that middle child. He rolls to the beat of his own drum and always has. I love that about him. He’s confident. He’s sure about himself. And when Stephen was blowing up, he was like, “What’s the big deal? I beat him in the backyard.”

He was undrafted. He had a different path. It took him a while to get where he wanted to be. I’m super proud of him, and of Sydel (Dell and Sonya Curry’s third child, a daughter who played volleyball at Elon) as well.

SF: Are this season’s Hornets a playoff team?

DC: It’s an improved team. I’ve got to look around and kind of survey the rest of the Eastern Conference. You don’t know where everybody’s going to shake out. But I would think yes. Without seeing the rest of the league, it’s a playoff team.

A new marriage

SF: You went through a high-profile divorce here fairly recently with Sonya Curry, the mother of Steph, Seth and Sydel. And now I believe you have gotten remarried?

DC: Yes. It’s great. ... I didn’t know what I was gonna do (after the divorce). I thought about going to the West Coast. I’m like, “Nah, I’m not gonna follow my sons. I’m going to stick it out. Hang here.”

And then I had friends who introduced me to my wife now. I’d met her a couple of times. We talked on the phone for a month before I laid eyes on her. I’m like: “Oh, I like this girl, man. What’s going on here?”

I wasn’t going to get married again. But life is great right now. It couldn’t be better. For me, I’m at a great place in my life. My home situation is sound. My kids and their families are doing great. They’re happy for me. I’m happy for them. So life’s good.

SF: And her name is?

DC: Nikki.

SF: And y’all have been married how long?

DC: Almost a year.

SF: You’ve seen and played a lot of NBA basketball. Take your own family out of the equation and tell me your all-time Mount Rushmore of NBA greats.

DC: I’ve got to go with guys I’ve personally played with and against, on and off the court. Obviously Jordan is one. Magic Johnson. Larry Bird. And I’m gonna go with Hakeem Olajuwon. I know I’m leaving people off, but that’s a strong group.

SF: What is your message to parents of aspiring athletes?

DC: If you have kids that play sports, and you take film or you have video footage, keep it organized. Because your kids could grow up to be major sports professionals and everybody’s gonna want that film (Laughs).

Most importantly, make sure that (with) your kids — you give them all the resources you can. And you give them guidance. But you don’t live your life through theirs. They’ve got to do it themselves.

Eventually your voice is going to fade. Then just be there as a parent. To support. To encourage. And tell them the truth.

Life’s full of ups and downs. If you can level the playing field out for your kids I think it’ll help them in life whatever they do, whether they’re bankers, lawyers, columnists, professional athletes, whatever. They’ve got to know life is hard. But when it hits, you’ve got to keep working.

Scott Fowler: You and Steph are now the first father-son duo to each be featured in “Sports Legends of the Carolinas.” Would you say that’s the greatest honor of your career?

Dell Curry: (Laughs) It’s right up there.

For much more from this interview as well as other “Sports Legends” guests like Roy Williams, Thomas Davis, Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Richardson and Dawn Staley, check out the “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” podcast.

The “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” coffee table book debuts at Thanksgiving and is now available to pre-order — at a 20% discount for a limited time — at SportsLegendsBook.com.