Reggie Miller Says Steph Curry Proves “You Don’t Have to Be an A****** to Be Successful”

“You don’t have to be like Mike anymore.”

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Complex Original

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Steph Curry is proving a lot of things on the basketball court right now. For example, he’s proving that you don’t have to be a supreme physical specimen like LeBron James to be considered one of the best basketball players in the league. He’s also proving that you don’t need to be one of the most highly recruited players in college to eventually make a major impact in the NBA. But according to Reggie Miller, one of the most important things that Curry is proving is that you don’t have to be “an asshole”—Reggie’s words, not ours—to be successful in life.

Miller did an interview with The New Yorker recently and talked at length about the success Curry has enjoyed in the NBA. And while Miller isn’t quite ready to concede that Curry is as good as he was—“I’d take down Steph at my peak,” he said—he said that Curry is going to have a huge impact on today’s kids if he continues to do what he’s been doing. In Miller’s mind, Curry is proving that you don’t have to be as cutthroat as someone like Michael Jordan to turn into one of the best players, if not the best player, in the entire world.

“What made Jordan so great was that he could get the ball way up in the air and finish it,” Miller said. “But you don’t have to dunk to be like Steph. Every kid looks at Steph and thinks: ‘I can shoot and dribble.’ You don’t have to be like Mike anymore. You know, Mike was an asshole. I was an asshole, too. But you don’t have to be an asshole to be successful. Steph is living proof.”

You can check out Miller’s entire interview with The New Yorkerhere.

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[via The New Yorker]

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