The coronation of Stephen Curry, the man who changed the NBA

• Chronicle The Warriors recover the ring of champions

• Fourth ring From being the worst team to the title: the way back for the Warriors

Stephen Curry

did not need the Finals MVP, because there is no greater legacy than having changed the game.

He have defined the basketball of an era.

The point guard of the Golden State Warriors marks the transition from vertical to horizontal dominance: no one was able to condition a defense so far from the rim, many times without even needing the ball.

As his teammate

said , his impact is measured by the change in the NBA in the last decade.

Today's style is born from the reign of Curry.

How is that not going to be domain.

How a Finals MVP award is going to add to that legacy.

And yet part of the story of these Finals claimed that Stephen Curry vindicate himself.

That despite having won three rings, two MVPs in the regular phase, being the best shooter (and the greatest three-point shooter) of all time, having changed the NBA board, he needed to crown this fourth ring with a memorable performance .

Of the three Finals that these Warriors had won, Stephen Curry, the star that defines them, had not been the best in any.

In 2015, the accolade went to

, whose defense over

changed the tie.

And in 2017 and 2018, for

.

If the most devastating version of Stephen Curry in the Finals was yet to be seen, there are his last two at the TD Garden in Boston: 43 points in the fourth round to tie the tie, and 34 of the last to win the ring.

After the loss in the 2019 Finals called the Warriors' validity into question, Curry led them back to the top.

"[Curry] reminds me a lot of

. From a human and talent standpoint," explained

, Duncan's former teammate on the Spurs and now Curry's coach on the Warriors.

"The humility, the confidence... It's a wonderful mix that makes the whole team want to win for him. Without him, none of this would be possible. For me, this is the crowning of him."

"What are you going to say now!?"

In the run-up to the sixth game, Stephen Curry was asked if the harsh tone that the Finals had taken in the stands bothered him.

The insults, the taunts (some, without malice but unnecessary, directed at his wife or his daughter).

Curry responded that he was the first to feed off of that training.

And come the day of the coronation, he passed the bills.

After hitting the 3-pointer that took the Warriors to a 22-point third-quarter lead, Curry walked to the bench looking into the stands and pointing to the ring finger on his right hand, "Put the fucking ring on me!" .

After the triple that extinguished the reaction of the Celtics in the last quarter, he made the gesture of sending Boston to sleep.

The list was long after three years of disappointments.

And there was more at a press conference, where he made the 'zero' gesture with his fingers to mock

, former champion with the Celtics turned into a crude debater and who last summer criticized his renewal (more than 200 million dollars) alleging that he would never win a ring again.

"This ring is different because of the backpack of the three years that we have carried since the 2019 Finals. Now I can say it, I don't know how many teams could have put up with it for that long, all those expectations, the comparisons with [great] teams of the past, and get back to the top again," Curry said at a news conference.

The weight of staying on top for so long, of enduring the potholes of recent years, of seeing how each ring seemed to have an asterisk.

That's why one of the most repeated phrases in the celebration of the Warriors was "What are they going to say now!? What are they going to say now!?".

Knowing that, after four rings (and six Finals) in eight seasons, of changing the league in the case of Curry, his legacy belongs to history.

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