A Team Where No One is Left Behind: The Work of Steph Curry

This time of year is special in the NBA—not just for the intensity of playoff basketball, but also because it’s when the league celebrates some of its most meaningful honors. While I love the performance awards like Defensive Player or Rookie of the Year, it’s the extraordinary awards that truly stand out. These aren't about points or rebounds; they celebrate legacy, character, leadership, and the kind of impact that can’t be measured. These awards honor players who elevate not just their teams, but their communities—and the game itself. You don’t have to be a Golden State Warriors fan to recognize that Steph Curry embodies all of that. No wonder he is the 2025 Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year honoree.

Twelve players—six from each conference—are finalists for the Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year Award. While the league already honors sportsmanship with the Joe Dumars Trophy, the "Teammate of the Year" award recognizes selfless play, leadership on and off the court, as well as unwavering team commitment. These qualities, though sportsmanlike, reflect the  legacy of the awards namesakes Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes, for whom the award is named.

The award was announced by the league on April 28 and given by Coach Kerr to Steph Curry —after practice, standing mid court with the team and other coaches. Without a doubt, his work on the court is magnanimous. We are all witnesses to the greatest shooter of the day. And although I don't personally know Steph, from all that I have read, seen and encountered myself—I believe he's magnanimous off the court too. 

He is great because he pays attention on a micro and macro level. He takes notice, he listens and he prays. That's magnanimity. I show the AppleTV movie about his life, "Underrated" to my students because I want them to see that for themselves. One of my favorite scenes early on features Steph riding solo on the subway.  With his head leaning against the window he says, "I'm constantly trying to find the space just to be able to to survey my life, survey what's going onto let my mind think about, How did I get here?" Hard work. Determination. Faith, Kindness. Sacrifice. I think those might be a few ways to answer that question.

If being a good teammate means that you continue to improve, work harder and smarter then look no further than Steph. However, the story behind the award sets the stage for the criteria. According to SFGate, in 1958 Maurice Stokes "suffered a brain injury in the final game of the 1957-58 regular season, fell into a coma days later and became permanently paralyzed." He was just 24. In an extraordinary act of loyalty and compassion, Jack Twyman became Stokes' legal guardian and advocate, and supported him for the remaining 12 years of Stokes' life. Their relationship went beyond sports—it was about brotherhood, sacrifice, and selflessness.

I see those qualities in Steph Curry and this post by Mukurima X Muriuki, confirmed my hunch. It also catapulted Steph into first place: my favorite athlete of all time. Yes, I am biased. And yes, this is a true story. Enjoy.

It’s 2:30 a.m. at San Francisco International. Everyone is tired. The Golden State Warriors have just landed from a brutal road trip. Staff, coaches, and players scatter. Everyone eager to get home and crash.

Everyone except one guy.

Quinten Post.

He is a rookie, new to the league and still waiting for his big moment. 

He doesn’t have a big contract, so he can only afford so much.

And it is in such ungodly hour when shit hits the fan. And it did

His Uber app would not load. And as a result he did not have a ride

Post is 7 feet tall. And that was the height of uncertainty, standing alone on the curb, invisible to most.

Except one.

Stephen (Múrage) Curry.

Two-time MVP. 

Four-time champ. 

Face of the franchise.

“You trying to get home?” Steph asked Post.

Post mumbles something, embarrassed. “It’s cool, I’ll figure it out.”

But Curry isn’t wired that way.

“I got you,” he replied

And just like that, the most recognizable athlete in the Bay Area becomes the most dependable teammate in the league. 

Steph drives the rookie home—no cameras, no PR, just kindness at 2:30 in the morning.

“Out of the 50 people at that airport,” Post would later say, “Steph was the last person who had to care. But he did. That’s who he is.”

Isitoshe,

Now here is  where the story bends.

Fast forward to Game 4 of the NBA playoffs  this past weekend. Warriors vs. Rockets.

In a first quarter where Steph could not  buy a bucket, ir is Quinten Post—yes, the same rookie once stranded at the airport—who catches fire.

He nails back-to-back threes, swats a shot into the fifth row, and screams into the crowd like he has been here before.

He hasn’t. But in that moment, he belongs.

Steph cheered on, like a proud big brother. Because he knew. He saw the worth in Post long before the world did.

Stephen Curry did not help him for clout. He helped him because that’s the culture he helped build—a team where no one is left behind.

May the day break! 

A team where no one is left behind. That's what Twyman and Stokes did for one another. That's what Curry and Post have shared. It sounds a lot like the Kingdom we are called to build here and now.

And for what it's worth, Curry won "Sportsman of the Year in 2011." Congratulations Steph. We got you.

Photo Credits
Honors
Curry and Post

Awards Season: Getting it Right

It's awards season. It's that time of year when schools, sports and society recognize the great achievements, effort, abilities and advancements made by people in the past year plus. In light of this timely tradition, I would like to offer a thought on why it's important to get awards "right." And, why we might get them wrong. 

On Friday, May 3, 2024 President Biden gave the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to 19 people. Check out the impressive list here. As noted by the WhiteHouse.gov  this prestigious award is "presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors."

All of my social media channels were flooded with posts, pictures, and praise Rev. Greg Boyle, SJ—"a Jesuit Catholic president who founded Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention and rehabilitation program based in California,"

Beyond my colleagues and friends who work in Jesuit education, this award was celebrated by those who love his writing, Catholics, Angelinos, advocates for social justice and many more. Read about his ministry, his efforts and approach and it's impossible to question another American more deserving.

In honoring Greg Boyle, I was reminded that getting awards "right" buoys our spirits; it's strengthens our society. It is good to collectively celebrate and honor a person. It puts their life's  story into our conversation and calls us to consider what they have done, what sacrifices they make, what their talents have yielded, etc. How or why the United States better because of this person? And who they recognize and celebrate?!

I appreciate that this award is extended to Americans, even after death. I was equally moved in seeing names like Medgar Evers and Jim Thorpe as 2024 honorees. What a class.

The risk, however, of extending an award is that from time to time we get it wrong. There's no other way to say it: we honor the wrong person. In some instances, there might be two candidates who are equally qualified. To award one means to leave out the other. Quite often questions of merit and desert are not easy to answer.Who decides? How do we decide? It's not easy to get it right.

To this day, there is one experience that still haunts me. I had been coaching for a good 10 years and we coaches opted NOT to honor a certain athlete with the program's highest honor. She was our best athlete and she was a great teammate. She did not however fit the mold of how athletes in the past demonstrated leadership in the capacity in which we were familiar or comfortable.

I wish we had spent more time discerning different and creative ways that our athletes demonstrate what the program’s highest honor aims to recognize. While criteria for the award helps, I also think its take a generous mind and an open one when making a decision like this one. We struggled with our choice. Please know, we made a good faith effort. We thought we were doing the right thing, but I'm not sure any of us felt totally comfortable with our choice. When it came time to extend the award, there was a collective gasp from the audience. Most people were shocked. The sentiment in that room was very different than it should or could have been. I will say, both the honoree and the athlete who did not win embraced and supported one another. Lessons learned.

The swimmer won seven Olympic gold medals and 21 world championship gold medals,
more than any other woman in the sport

I love honoring my athletes. I think awards are not to be dismissed. I want to acknowledge however, coaches, teachers, administrators and leaders don’t always get it right. It’s worth discussing how we get to bullseye. And for what it's worth, I brought this up with another coach in the program just last week. I told her how I felt and she said "no, we made the right decision."  Ten years after the fact and here we are: we agree to disagree.

Whether we get it right or wrong, awards require us to hit pause—to look back, reflect and recognize. Who has made a difference? And how Why are we better because of them? And in the choosing, we might cheer or jeer. As Americans we will not all agree on who deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom—there are a few names on this year's list that I see as moves for pure political gain. Regardless, the class stands as a collective cannon whereby we can assess what American life and culture means from the lives of its very own.

Whether your choosing the 2024 valedictorian, the NBA Clutch player or Defensive Player of the year, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient or Presidential Medal of Free honoree, let us do what we can to get awards "right" and celebrate when we do.

Of all the awards to win, I have to admit being award "Clutch Player of the Year"....might be my preference.

Photo Credits
Boyle
Thorpe
Ledecky