The Curry family is chasing down Kobe and Joe Bryant’s scoring title

It was just last Monday that Stephen Curry and his father Dell passed Dolph and Danny Schayes for second highest scoring father-son duo in NBA history. Since then, Curry has continued to add onto the family house, dropping 51 points on the wobbling Washington Wizards, and 29 on those poor New York Knicks.

As it stands now, those two Curry’s have a combined 27,306 points. Father Dell, who averaged 11.7 points per game over his 16 year career, is responsible for 12,670 of those points. His son Steph learned the family’s sweet shooting stroke and is currently terrorizing the NBA for 33.7 points a game. For his career, he’s averaged 23.2 points per game over 10 seasons, for a total of 14,636 points scored.

They also teamed up for the most precious commercials in NBA history.

Their familial scoring prowess only trails the record of Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, and his son, the “Black Mamba”, Kobe. They combined for 38,895 points. The Warriors are forever tied to the legacies of both families, as the franchise drafted Joe Bryant in the first round back in 1975, 34 years before drafting Steph.

Joe averaged 8.7 PPG over his 8 year career, and finished with 5252 points total. He’s probably best known for posterizing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. His son, last seen haunting “King” LeBron James at a Lakers game, scored 33,643, the third most points in NBA history (one spot higher than Michael Jordan). Kobe averaged 25 PPG over 20 seasons, never finding a shot he didn’t like.

As I started crunching these numbers, it dawned on me that Kobe’s career spanned the intersection of both Curry’s. I dug deep through the YouTube archives to see if I could find clips of Dell vs Kobe’s Lakers. This one is from their first ever meeting on November 6th, 1996, showcasing Dell intercepting a Shaquille O’Neal pass, pushing it the other way, and draining a contested three-pointer at the top of the key.

Even through this grainy, VHS footage I can easily see where Steph gets his defensive instincts and dagger shots from.

Curiously enough, Kobe was temporarily a teammate of Dell’s, as the Hornets drafted Kobe in 1996 before trading him to the Lakers. Dave Cowens (the then Hornets head coach who would later coach the Warriors briefly) was the guy who oversaw that trade. He didn’t want Kobe in part because the team already had Dell.

Per Adam Himmselsback of the Boston Globe, Cowens didn’t see a place for Kobe on the roster:

The Hornets were coming off a 41-41 season and felt they were close to contending for an Eastern Conference title. And they had traded center Alonzo Mourning to the Heat in November 1995, so acquiring a proven player like Divac made sense.

“If we were going to make a move, we wanted to get a big,” Cowens said. “LA was willing to give up Vlade, and it wasn’t like we were trading Kobe for another guy who was going to play the 2 or the 3 position.

“We had Glen Rice, Dell Curry, and Muggsy Bogues, some guys who could play a little bit from the backcourt, and we were looking to try to win right away. We needed to get a big.

“We knew [Bryant] was good and all, but we didn’t know he was going to be the player he turned out to be.”

Wow, that is hella funny.

Kobe eventually faced both Curry’s in their primes, which is a testament to how long his career stretched. For you hoop nerds, here are the “Kobe vs Dell” and the “Kobe vs Steph” head-to-head game logs.

The Bryant father son-duo may have the record now, but it’s only a matter of time before the 30-year old Curry carries the baton from his father to the top of that list.

“It’s pretty special,” Curry said. “I know what my dad in his career, for 16 years, so this is him passing the torch to me.

“And I’m going to try to talk to the rules committee to see if we can get Seth Curry’s numbers in there, too.”

“That’s the power of strength in numbers right there,” Steph said. “Let’s see if we can catch Kobe and his dad.”

—Steph Curry, per USA Today

It’d be pretty sweet if the NBA would add up the younger Curry brother Seth’s stats. The Portland Trailblazers guard does have 1,228 points over his six year career. But even if you combined all three Curry’s points, they would still be short by 10,361 points from Kobe and Jellybean’s record. For House Curry to catch House Bryant, there will have to be a lot more nets scorched and ankles broken.

Something tells me that Steph is up to that task.