Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry (37) became the first NBA player ever to score 4,000 three-pointers on Thursday, extending his runaway lead as the greatest long-range shooter in basketball history.
Curry went into Thursday's clash against the Sacramento Kings needing just two threes to reach the unprecedented 4,000 mark, just days after reaching 25,000 career points last Saturday.
Curry, who turns 37 on Friday, took his time before completing the final few steps of his journey towards a scoring milestone once considered unthinkable before the four-time NBA champion revolutionised the art of three-point shooting.
The Warriors ace drained his first three-pointer of the night late in the first quarter, coolly finding the bucket from 26 feet to move to 3,999 career threes.
That was one of just three attempted three-pointers by Curry in the first half as the Warriors took a 61-51 lead into the break.
But he then had San Francisco's Chase Center crowd roaring its appreciation in the third quarter as he finally reached the 4,000 mark, dropping in a bucket from 27 feet to make it 72-63.
Curry's three-point haul is the latest achievement in a career that ensures he will be remembered as one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA.
Before Curry's emergence in the league, no player had ever amassed 3,000 triples in their career.
But the Warriors star has led a dramatic evolution of the three-point scoring record during his 16 seasons in the league.
In 2005, Reggie Miller led the all-time three-point shooting record with 2,560 triples.
Ray Allen would go on to surpass Miller's record in 2011 before retiring in 2014 with 2,973 threes.
Curry though eclipsed Allen's record seven years later, before reaching the 3,000 mark in December 2021, a feat matched by only one other player, the Los Angeles Clippers' James Harden, who stands on 3,127.
Since Curry passed 3,000 it had been a question of when not if four-time NBA champion Curry reached the 4,000 mark, a feat that Warriors coach Steve Kerr has described as "insane."
"I am desensitized to the three because they just come flooding through, game after game,"Kerr said earlier this week. "Four thousand is just an insane number, but it just seems kind of natural."
Whether Curry can reach 5,000 remains to be seen. His existing contract with Golden State runs through 2026-2027, but he said this week he hoped to play beyond that provided form and fitness allowed.
Speaking on the Bay Area radio station, 95.7 The Game, Curry said he was uncertain how much longer his career would last.
"I don't know," he said. "I've tried to answer that question before, and I've said a lot of different things just based on how I feel that day, but I think it's all kind of measured on the style of, 'Can I get to that level that I expect from myself?' It's not really attached to points per game or a stats thing."
"I know how my contract's lined up, and I'd like to outplay that, for sure. How long that goes? I have no idea."
