Unlike most biographical documentaries, "Stephen Curry: Underrated" benefits from having two very distinct windows in mind, both buttressing its underlying point: Curry as a barely recruited, under-sized high school prospect, before merging as a college star at Davidson; and his most recent title with the Golden State Warriors. Either would be good enough, but put together, "Underrated" shoots and scores.
The best appraisal of Curry's career occurs during the closing credits, by former NBA star turned broadcaster Reggie Miller, himself a talent who made the scouts look silly. Miller notes that Curry's three-point shooting rewrote the playbook for basketball, making him nothing less than a transformational player in how teams approach offense.
Before that, though, Curry was a long shot to ever play college basketball, much less become an NBA Hall of Famer, despite his lineage as the son of an NBA player, Dell Curry. "Underrated" goes back to that time, drawing heavily from home movies and what little footage was available of Davidson -- a small school that hadn't won an NCAA tournament game since 1969 before Curry led a Cinderella run nearly 40 years later.
"We just got a steal," Davidson coach Bob McKillop recalls thinking when Curry signed with the school after Dell's alma mater, Virginia Tech, opted not to recruit him.
With extensive access to Curry now, director Peter Nicks juxtaposes that with the Warriors being written off by some pundits (making basketball analysts look stupid is one of the documentary's recurring highlights) in terms of winning a fourth championship, which they did, of course, in 2022. At the same time, Curry is pursuing, belatedly, his college degree, having promised his mother that he would when he declared for the NBA draft in 2009.
"Underrated" presents the lows of Curry's career -- such as his turnover-laden collegiate debut -- in order to provide context to the highs, and particularly how McKillop stood by Curry when benching him might have been the more prudent course of action.
Few things in sports are more beautiful than Curry's long-distance heroics (he's not bad on the golf course either), and that's presented both during games and his grueling practice regimen, offering a glimpse of the hard work that went into becoming the greatest shooter who has ever picked up a basketball.
At its core, "Underrated" possesses the drama of a Hollywood underdog story, which doesn't make it less stirring even if one knows the outcome.
Steph Curry believed in himself, but more significantly, benefited from those who had faith in him when others overlooked and ignored him. That might be a familiar brand of feel-good story, but as sports documentaries go, it's certainly not an overrated one.
"Stephen Curry: Underrated" premieres July 21 in select theaters and Apple TV+. (Disclosure: Lowry's wife works for a division of Apple.)
