Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is as excited about his 3-point contest against New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu as the rest of us.
Curry and Ionescu will go head-to-head in a 3-point challenge during All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis on Feb. 17 in an NBA-WNBA competition that’s the first of its kind.
After the Warriors’ 119–107 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night, Curry was asked how he felt about the upcoming 3-point contest, and without hesitating he called it “the coolest thing ever.”
“[It’s] the coolest thing ever,” Curry said in a postgame interview. “I know she kind of broke the airwaves when she only missed two or something like that. I was on some golf course somewhere, my phone was blowing up saying what Sabrina had done.”
Last July, Ionescu easily beat the Seattle Storm’s Sami Whitcomb and Dallas Wings’ Arike Ogunbowale to win the 2023 WNBA All-Star 3-point contest. The Liberty sharpshooter scored 37 points on 25-of-27 shooting, the most in WNBA or NBA history.
Curry, widely heralded as the best 3-point shooter of all time, won the NBA’s 3-point contest twice in 2015 and 2021 and previously held the record at 31 points.
Per the “Stephen vs. Sabrina” contest guidelines, Curry would shoot from the NBA 3-point line with standard league basketballs and Ionescu would shoot from the WNBA 3-point line with WNBA basketballs. On Tuesday, however, Ionescu tweeted that she would join Curry and shoot from the NBA line, prompting the Golden State guard to praise her in advance.
“She even stepped it up, she said she was gonna shoot from the NBA 3-point line,” Curry said. “I love the confidence, I love the competition. Obviously, I’m coming to win and hope she does too. It’s gonna be great, I think the fans will love it.”