Preview: Curry makes return back to Toronto to face Raptors

Steph returns to the place his father played in the NBA.

The Golden State Warriors are back in action tonight, crossing over the border to play the Toronto Raptors in a game that the Dubs desperately need to get back on track in the highly competitive Western Conference.

Thankfully, the Raptors are not looking like worldbeaters right now with a record of 8-31. If there was ever a game the Dubs would hope to steal on the road to right their ship, this is the one. And it just so happens to take place in a city that franchise superstar Stephen Curry is verrrry familiar with. Will today be a case of home away from home cooking for Mr. Curry?

Golden State Warriors at Toronto Raptors

When: January 13th, 2024 | 4:30 PM PT

TV: NBC Sports Bay Area

Radio: 95.7 The Game

Chef Curry’s connection to Toronto runs deep like one of his long range bombs. Well before he became a four-time NBA champion, two-time MVP, Finals MVP, and the greatest shooter of all time, Toronto was like a second home to Steph.

Back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s when his dad Dell Curry was winding down his career as a reliable sharpshooter with the Toronto Raptors, Steph was just a skinny kid soaking in the NBA life from the sidelines.

Picture it with me folks: the Air Canada Centre (now Scotiabank Arena), Y2K vibes in full effect. There’s the OG hooper Dell draining threes for the Raptors while a young Steph and his brother Seth shot hoops on the court before games. For the Curry brothers, this wasn’t just a playground; it was their classroom. Steph grew up watching his dad battle against the league’s best, learning the nuances of the game while absorbing the rhythm of NBA life. Toronto wasn’t just a place Dell played; it was where Steph started dreaming big.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and Steph returned to Toronto, but this time, not as Dell Curry’s kid running around in warm-ups. He came back as the Splash King rewriting basketball history with his gravity-defying shot-making and weaponizing of joy. And in 2019, the stakes couldn’t have been higher: Steph’s Warriors faced the Raptors in the NBA Finals. It was poetic in a way: the city where he had spent so many formative years was now the setting for one of the most pivotal moments of his career.

The Dubs lost those Finals in six games as Kevin Durant’s Achilles and Klay Thompson’s ACL disintegrated, leaving the Warriors without enough weapons to complete their quest for a threepeat.

For Steph, it was a bittersweet full-circle moment. Toronto had been the backdrop of his childhood and now stood as the scene of one of the toughest battles of his career. The city that once nurtured his dreams now celebrated its own championship glory—at his expense. Life’s funny like that, huh?

Now it’s time to get a small measure of vengeance in Toronto. In front of Drake.