Thompson: How to play with Stephen Curry — a sophisticated dance that’s both

SAN FRANCISCO — Kevon Looney wasn’t going to stand for it. Hell no.

“I take pride in being able to catch,” he said, seated at his locker after Wednesday night’s 124-107 win over the Clippers. “And my first couple years, I feel like I couldn’t catch.”

Looney, the 2015 first-round pick out of UCLA, couldn’t get a read on when and where Stephen Curry was giving him the ball. As a result, playing with the epicenter of the Warriors’ offense had Looney looking like a scrub. Bobbling and dropping passes. Even if he caught it, the uncertainty and absence of rhythm made finishing the play harder.

The options out of a Curry pick-and-roll set are aplenty. Pull up for 3. Dribble into a midrange jumper. Drive. Dish. Stretch the play out wide and draw a double-team. Split that double-team. Hit the roll man. Snake around the screen, weaving back to the side from which he came. Even rejecting the screen is an option. It all added up to Looney having no idea what was coming.

He’d roll too early sometimes. Get in the way often. And he never knew when the pass was coming. When Curry did pass to him, the ball seemed to sneak up on him.

“He might throw it behind the neck,” Looney said, throwing an invisible ball over his shoulder.

“He might pass it behind the back,” he said, whipping his hand around his chair.

“He might look you off the first two times, then come to you on the third one. It ain’t something you just script. Some of his passes be out of nowhere. And I was on a short leash. You turn that mug over, you get subbed out quick.”

So Looney linked up with his go-to assistant coach, Chris DeMarco, and worked on his part of the pick-and-roll. They spent hours in the gym, just them, DeMarco throwing Looney random passes, through different windows and from different angles, so Looney could master being ready.

By his third year, Looney said, he started to understand how to play with Curry. By year four, he had it down. Now, in year eight, he’s a professor of the craft.

“I definitely did feel like I earned a graduate degree when I figured it out,” Looney said. “When guys actually started liking to play with me, I knew I made it.”

The question in this early season is how many more can figure it out. Because playing with Curry is, at its essence, understanding how the Warriors play basketball. He is the system. Their resurgence, winning seven of their last 10 to get back to .500, has been a byproduct of leaning into their trademarked style of play.

But playing with Curry is a sophisticated dance. This ain’t the “Cha Cha Slide.” More like basketball’s foxtrot, to the rhythm of a beat by Curry the creator. Draymond Green and Klay Thompson were practically c0-architects of Curry’s unique style of play, and thus the Warriors’ system, with Green as a conductor of the scheme and Thompson a consequence for the defense. Looney has earned tenure, and Andrew Wiggins, who topped 30 points for the first time this season…