Stephen Curry, the NBA's reigning MVP and the favorite to repeat, was a Nike athlete before he became the crowning jewel in Under Armour's impressive growing base. In his fourth season in the NBA, he was wearing a pair of Nike Zoom Hyperfuse sneakers when he dropped 54 points on the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Though he does not display the shoes, he has kept them for sentimentality, but they also likely remind him of the endorsement deal he may have signed if not for one pitch meeting just months after the 54-point performance at the Garden. It was that meeting that drove Curry from Nike to Under Armour, the company that made a wildly successful bet.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss detailed for ESPN.com the story of a meeting in August 2013 in which Nike sought to retain Curry after the Golden State Warriors guard had already been on board for years. Including the Jordan Brand, Nike endorses nearly three quarters of all NBA players, though that figure only drops to 68 percent without Jordan.
Nike apparently sent Nico Harrison, now the company's vice president of North America basketball operations, to Oakland to get Curry to stick with the swoosh long term. However, Nike did not send Lynn Merritt, LeBron James' brand manager at Nike. The company was also apparently not willing to make Curry one of its more prominent athletes and was focusing on other players.
"That summer, when it was really decision time, [Nike] were looking at Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis coming up. They gave Kyrie a camp and they gave Anthony Davis a camp," Chris Strachan, Curry's friend, said. "They didn't give Steph a camp."
But it is the account of the August 2013 pitch meeting that Dell Curry, a retired NBA player and Steph's father, gave to Strauss that seemed to be the nail in the coffin for Nike's chances to keep Curry. Dell Curry said Nike's people pronounced his son's name "Steph-on" (his name is pronounced like it is spelled, "Steph-en.")
"I heard some people pronounce his name wrong before," Dell Curry said. "I wasn't surprised. I was surprised that I didn't get a correction."
Dell described an apparently mistaken reference to Kevin Durant, one of Nike's premier athletes, in its slideshow as the point where he "stopped paying attention." But the elder Curry indicated his overall feeling was that Nike did not envision Curry being one of Nike's elites.
Now, Under Armour estimates Curry to be worth about $14 billion to the company and he is under contract through 2024 that also gives him an equity stake. Curry is also the headliner in a group of athletes Under Armour endorses including Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Lindsey Vonn, Misty Copeland, Clayton Kershaw, Bryce Harper, Jordan Spieth, Dwayne Johnson and more.
One of the hidden gems in Strauss' story is Curry explaining how his daughter Riley factored into the decision that (oh by the way) included Adidas.
"My favorite story is Riley," Steph says. It's a few weeks before a final decision on the shoe contract must be made. At his agent Jeff Austin's house in Hermosa Beach, California, Curry surveys the array of shoes before him. He asks his baby daughter, "Riley, which one do you like?"
He says Riley "Threw [the Nike shoe] over her shoulder. She picked [the Adidas shoe], threw it over her shoulder. She picked up the [Under Armour] shoe, walked over and handed it to me."
