Students of MasterClass are used to high-profile figures teaching courses in their areas of expertise. The online service’s roster of “professors” includes Aaron Sorkin, Jane Goodall, and Gordon Ramsay, among many famous others.
But with so many classes focused on life skills or professions such as cooking and writing or directing, electronic music production, and architecture, Stephen Curry is mixing things up with a MasterClass course on basketball fundamentals.
For the two-time NBA champion and MVP with the Golden State Warriors, passing on his knowledge of the game felt natural.
“If I think about where I was when I was 13, if I had access to this type of curriculum, I would have been a much better player faster,” he told ESPN. “It took me a while to learn how to practice and do the drills the right way. I want people to see how I invest in my game, how I train, what I do in my workouts and what’s my mental approach.”
Curry joins Serena Williams as the athletes teaching a MasterClass in their respective sports. Curry’s class, which is open for enrollment and is set to go live after the new year, will focus on shooting, in-game execution — involving footwork and ball-handling drills — and the game’s mental aspect. The course will be comprised of 15 or more individual lessons.
Students of Curry will also be able to download a workbook with lesson notes and workout plans, as well as a shot tracking sheet much like the one Curry uses. $90 grants students lifetime access to the course.
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“For me, it’s a cool learning process because I actually get to articulate a lot of the things that are pretty natural to me, but it might not be natural to others,” Curry told ESPN. “It came together really nicely. The visuals and the production are unbelievable. It allows me to explain all the things that I do to get better.
Curry stressed to ESPN that though younger players often want to immediately try his moves on the NBA court, there’s a long process to his performance that he hopes to convey through the MasterClass.
“We talked about that in the class a little bit,” he said. “There’s a progression to everything that I do. So, if you watch our games and you see the way that I play and you don’t know what goes into the work behind it, then you might obviously have that opinion that if you want to play like Steph, you just show up to the court, shoot 40-footers or shoot off of one foot, try all these crazy dribble moves, and that’s how you play. But there is an education about just how much time I put into what I do.”
Curry’s involvement in MasterClass follows on the heels of his significant investment in CoachUp, a platform that connects amateur athletes with private coaches for further one-on-one development. Curry is a part-owner in the Boston-based startup, and he serves on its Athlete Advisory Council along with New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman, Dallas Mavericks center Nerlens Noel, and Boston Bruins president Cam Neely.
There is one thing Curry told ESPN he absolutely won’t teach: dunking. But even with the signature move missing from the curriculum, Curry’s MasterClass is sure to be a slam dunk with aspiring basketball players and fans throughout the country.