Stephen Curry Spent The Summer Mastering His Ball-Handling Skills With A 'Flashing Lights' Test That Looks Insane
Ezra Shaw/Getty Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry is one of the leading candidates for MVP this season.
Curry is averaging 23 points, five rebounds, and eight assists per game for the first-place Warriors, and he's doing it as the most exciting player in the league.
To reach this elite status, Curry puts in a ton of work on his game, as highlighted by Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The article highlights several of Curry's drills for improving his ball-handling, one of which is a unique drill where he has to react to flashing lights.
Most intriguingly, Curry also dribbles while five lights alternately flash on a wall in front of him. His quest in this innovative drill is to quickly react to the lights, making a specific move — yellow might mean "crossover" — and reaching out with his other hand to tap the light and hurry to the next one.
"The lights mimic what’s happening on the court," Curry said. "If there’s a defender in front of me, then I’ve got to know where he is and still be ready to initiate whatever move I’m going to make."
The NBA posted a video that shows some of Curry's workouts, one of which is the flashing light drill:
Curry is able to maintain his dribble, switching hands, while also tossing a tennis ball against the wall and reacting to different lights.
Kroichick also notes that Brandon Payne, Curry's personal trainer, will have associates stand in Curry's periphery and hold up numbers for Curry to read while he dribbles and reacts to the lights.
It's impressive stuff from Curry, who has quietly become one of the NBA's best ball-handlers. While he's known for his lethal shooting, Curry has become incredibly tough to defend when he was the ball in his hands.
This season, he made the Oklahoma City Thunder look foolish when he dribble backwards through his legs to evade defenders:
Later in the same game, he froze Russell Westbrook with a behind-the-back dribble:
Kroichick quotes Payne, who raves about Curry's work ethic: " We’ve had a lot of NBA point guards in here. Nobody comes close to Steph. The speed and ease with which he gets better is scary."
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