PBS News Hour

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: A new documentary gives insight into what turned NBA superstar Steph Curry into the generational game-changer that he is right at the time when he was just starting to break through.

Geoff Bennett has that story for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

ANNOUNCER: Here's Curry for the record.

It's good!

There it is!

GEOFF BENNETT: He's the best shooter to ever take to the court.

ANNOUNCER: The all-time three-point king of the NBA!

GEOFF BENNETT: With seemingly unlimited range... ANNOUNCER: Bang, at the buzzer!

GEOFF BENNETT: ... Steph Curry transformed how modern basketball is played since he entered the NBA.

But to call him just a shooter is to undersell his magic.

Curry's acrobatics around the rim... ANNOUNCER: A layup off the glass!

GEOFF BENNETT: ... his passing vision, and his leadership on and off the court are just some of the skills he's showcased... ANNOUNCER: The Golden State Warriors, they're on top of the NBA world.

GEOFF BENNETT: ... in a career packed with NBA records and four championships.

ANNOUNCER: The Dubs dynasty is still very much alive.

GEOFF BENNETT: Curry's career is as inimitable as it is improbable... ANNOUNCER: And he got it!

GEOFF BENNETT: ... for a player recruited in high school by only one college, the small liberal arts school Davidson College.

STEPH CURRY, Golden State Warriors: It was a moment of energy for me.

GEOFF BENNETT: His underdog story is chronicled in a new documentary, "Stephen Curry: Underrated," produced by Curry's media company, and by Ryan Coogler of "Black Panther" and "Creed" fame, who himself grew up a Warriors fan in Oakland.

I spoke with them last week about the film.

Steph Curry and Ryan Coogler, welcome to the "PBS NewsHour."

STEPH CURRY: Thank you for having us.

RYAN COOGLER, Producer, "Stephen Curry: Underrated": Thanks for having us.

GEOFF BENNETT: Steph, given all of the success that you have had over your career, it's really in many ways easy to forget your origin story, that, in the early days, you had your detractors, you had your skeptics, people who said that you weren't tall enough.

MAN: "At 6'2'', he is too skinny for the NBA shooting guard position.

Do not rely on him to run your team."

That was the draft report on Stephen Curry.

GEOFF BENNETT: Looking back now at all of that, did that serve as a motivator for you?

STEPH CURRY: Absolutely.

I was undersized, kind of a scrawny, skinny kid on every team I played, even going through the middle school and high school ranks and starting, like, recruiting, quickly found out that those big-time schools weren't going to knock on my door and offer you scholarship offers.

And I had to really try to find out what my identity was, proving people wrong, in a sense.

I tried to channel that.

I had some -- my mom painted a very good perspective for me at those ages of everybody just wants to be seen, have an opportunity to showcase who they really are and what they're really capable of and what they offer to the world.

But my motivation was to prove myself right.

GEOFF BENNETT: Ryan Coogler, why did you want to have a hand in telling this coming-of-age story?

RYAN COOGLER: Being a Warriors fan, like I owe Steph a lot of favors.

Man, I owe you a lot of debt.

You know, he's been responsible for a lot of pride and just good times for me and my friends and my neighborhood.

I wasn't as familiar with this story as I should have been.

When I watched the first cut, I was like on the edge of my seat.

With everything that's going on, man, people need things that make them feel good and things that inspire them and are fun to watch, but also make them think deeply about themselves and how the world views them, how to move through it.

And I think this film hits all those boxes.

GEOFF BENNETT: Steph, much of the documentary focuses on your years spent playing basketball at Davidson College.

What does your former coach Bob McKillop mean to you?

STEPH CURRY: There is no me on this level without Coach McKillop finding that connection with me, coming in, in my junior year of high school, and just the way that he built me up and saw me, my potential, more than I even saw for myself at the time.

He had been building the Davidson program for over 20 years by the time I showed up.

And the way that he teaches and coaches the full person, the athlete, and the man, you know, it resonated with me in terms of truly finding somebody that was going to help me to realize my full potential.

GEOFF BENNETT: Ryan, was it a challenge to tell the story of someone as universally well known as Steph Curry is?

Was it hard to find something new to tell folks?

RYAN COOGLER: This film is about the power of family, community, and mentorship, and the power that comes with truly being seen.

And I think -- I think, in that -- from that viewpoint, it wasn't hard at all.

The masses know Stephen Curry, but I don't think the masses know this story.

I think knowledge of Steph will get people into the door, in terms of going to the theater or pressing play on a film, but the story is so universal.

It's so relatable.

This film is about self-discovery, but, also, it's about the power of love.

You know what I'm saying?

And watching Steph kind of transform into what he's going to become just because somebody recognized what he was at the he was at the time, not looking at him and said, oh, this guy isn't this tall, so X, Y, or Z, or he can't do this.

So, I just want to see.

No, this is what he can do right now.

This is what he can do.

And that thing he could do, shoot the basketball at a prolific level, it's changed basketball.

GEOFF BENNETT: What was it like sitting and watching this film?

STEPH CURRY: It illuminated so many great memories, but it also reintroduced me to the impact that we were able to have through that run and what's kind of come of it.

I also realized, my first college game at Davidson, I had 13 turnovers in the first game.

And you have a memory of how bad it was, but then I watched the film, and I saw the highlights for the first time in 15 years, and it was 100 times worse than I remembered.

(LAUGHTER) STEPH CURRY: And so I think about, like, how low it was at one point to where it is now, definitely gave me a lot of gratitude and appreciation.

GEOFF BENNETT: Ryan, what resonated the most with you about Steph's story?

RYAN COOGLER: This film has a profound effect on me as a parent watching this, because it - - there's two relationships, I think, kind of at the heart of this movie, Steph's relationship with his mom and his relationship with his coach.

Obviously, the mom -- his relationship with his mom is about him going back to school.

And he's doing his thing that's incredibly difficult at a time when he's doing a lot.

He's got sponsorships and Subway commercials and trying to take his team to the championship and trying to break the three-point record and trying to raise his kids.

And he's doing a term paper over Zoom.

And I'm just thinking, like, I know that's difficult, man.

That's not easy.

But why is he doing that?

And you realize, man, it's because he said - - he told his mom that he would.

I look at Coach McKillop.

I look at the fact that he actively saw Steph for what he was, not what was missing or what he could give him in a few years, but he saw what Steph could give him now.

And I thought that that was just so exceptional.

We had an event in New York a couple of days ago where I got to see Coach McKillop again.

And I shared that with him.

And he said: "Hey, do you have kids?"

And I say: "Yes, I do."

He said: "Make sure you look at your kids that way.

Look at them for what they are right now in a moment, not what they could be, not for what they're missing."

And I have thought about him every day, every day since.

GEOFF BENNETT: Steph Curry, your legacy is still being written.

How do you want people to view your contribution to the game of basketball?

STEPH CURRY: I still feel like I -- I'm in the prime of my career, in a sense of what I'm able to accomplish.

ANNOUNCER: Curry to the basket lefthanded.

STEPH CURRY: Just out there and what the future may hold, trying to achieve, hopefully win more championships, and push the envelope as far as I can.

But, I mean, the biggest thing is just inspiration, right?

Like, there's something outside of me and the stats and the three-point record and championships and all that that gives people hope and belief of everything that this film speaks about, everything Ryan just said about what Coach McKillop has taught me along the way.

Basketball has opened up so many amazing doors, and it's changed so many lives for the better.

And to be able to do that in a very meaningful way is very surreal to me, just because this is a game that I just loved to play from the time I could walk.

And now you realize, like, how it's overdelivered on impact.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, Steph Curry and Ryan Coogler, I appreciate you both.

Thanks for your time.

RYAN COOGLER: Thank you.

STEPH CURRY: And thank you for having us.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Online, watch Steph Curry ace another sport he is passionate about, golf.

He tells Geoff what it felt like to recently sink a hole in one.

That's on our Instagram.