Golden State Warriors All-Star guard Steph Curry didn't win the 2019 NBA Three-Point Contest in Charlotte on Saturday night, but he would still give himself an 'A' for effort.
More NBA news
"You miss a couple, you start to think a little bit," Curry said after the event, via the Sporting News. "I give myself an A for effort in terms of getting down to the last rack and literally had one go in and out. At that point, I knew I needed all five of them."
Curry finished as runner-up in the contest to the newly crowned champion Joe Harris, who is happy with his victory, but knows that it doesn't mean that he is a better shooter than the man many consider to be the greatest of all time.
"Obviously it's incredible," Harris said. "Steph is the greatest shooter of all time. Again, shooting off of the rack for a minute is not indicative of being a better shooter than Steph Curry. I don't want anybody to get it twisted at all. He's come in and won this thing [in 2015] and lost. He's participated a number of different times. So for me to come in my first time and to win obviously is quite a surreal experience."
Harris thinks that being the first player to shoot gave him an advantage.
"I think I was lucky to be the first guy to shoot," Harris said. "Because I was able to get kind of warm beforehand, and you don't really have a ton of anxiety because you can't have time to think about it. You're going right into it, right into shooting."
Though he didn't win, participating in the event in front of fans from his hometown of Charlotte was special - and memorable - for Curry.
"A 3-point competition with that kind of atmosphere? It's what you ask for," Curry said. "I was thinking that in my head... You see the ball go in and go in, you almost kind of black out on the last rack People behind you and people behind celebrity row are yelling behind you making noises and stuff. You hear the crowd. It's not like Oracle in terms of the volume. You feel it out here a little bit more... and seeing my dad behind the bench and the whole family up in the crowd was cool. So I will remember this for a long time."
Though Curry didn't get to add another trophy to his already extensive collection, the memory of performing in front of his family and friends in his hometown may prove to be even more valuable to him.
