Culture
What's it like when Steph Curry shows up at a pickup game? 'Even the adults were screaming'
It started like any other pickup basketball game at an open gym — players sweating on the court, others waiting on the sidelines and spectators casually observing. Jessica Brogan, who had attended similar practice-like sessions with her two hoops-hungry sons, said it began as a “normal open run.”
However, on this particular Saturday, there was unusual electricity in the air at the Life Time gym in Folsom, Calif., as rumors circulated in the greater Sacramento community that a global basketball star was in town and might swing by. Still, there was reason to doubt it.
“I didn’t even tell my kids about it because I hear that kind of stuff all the time and it doesn’t pan out,” Brogan said.
Others, like Berry Roseborough IV, a basketball trainer in the area who works with college and pro players, were more sure. Roseborough received a call from Marcus Kirkland, who was organizing the session, asking him to recruit his best players because of the expected attendance of this special guest.
On the morning of June 8, Roseborough called his pupils in town without revealing too much, just enough.
“You’ll probably be mad if you miss it,” Damarion Vann-Kelly said Berry told him.
Vann-Kelly had a hunch, one that grew after Kent Bazemore — a G League player who spent 10 seasons in the NBA — walked in. About 10 minutes after Bazemore arrived and with a game underway, the screams began: It’s Curry. It’s Curry.
“All the little kids are screaming,” Vann-Kelly said. “Even the adults were screaming.”
Sure enough, Stephen Curry, wearing a light gray hoodie pulled over his head, walked in.
“I look up while we’re playing and I’m like — excuse my language — but, ‘Oh s—, Steph just walked through the doors,’ ” Roseborough said. “And you could feel it. … You feel all the energy in the gym radiating. Everybody’s almost in shock.”
Brogan looked at her sons’ faces. Braxton, 13, turned red when he noticed the four-time NBA champion, and Easton, 10, grew wide-eyed and broke into an ear-to-ear smile when he realized it was Curry stretching nearby, she said.
It’s not unheard of for NBA players to join amateur pickup games as a way for them to stay tuned up, especially during the league’s offseason. Players with college and pro experience, including Bazemore, regularly attend the runs Kirkland organizes in the Sacramento area. The two met at a gym in 2022 and stayed in touch, according to Kirkland, bonding over a shared love of basketball and a desire to pass that love on to others in their community.
Bazemore encouraged Curry, who was in the area for his daughter’s youth volleyball tournament, to drop by the gym, Kirkland said. Curry, whose NBA season ended in April with the Warriors’ Play-In Tournament loss to the Sacramento Kings, will make his Olympic debut at the Paris Games next month as the United States men go for their fifth straight gold medal.
“We’ve had a lot of (NBA players) come to our runs but never anyone of the caliber of Stephen Curry,” Roseborough said. “That was like ‘Wow.’ ”
Brogan called it a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” for her family.
During a roughly two-hour session, Curry put on a masterclass. He and Bazemore teamed up, playing five-on-five against Kirkland, Vann-Kelly, Roseborough and others. Brogan and her sons watched in awe along with a growing crowd that became so large that security asked people to leave, she said.
Naturally, Curry delivered. Roseborough said he noticed Curry’s pace and how simple his game is.
“He didn’t do anything more than he needed to do in that moment,” Roseborough said. “His pickups — basically how you pick up the ball before you get into your shot — they were just so fast like you couldn’t even see them.
“Then his release. He’s getting his shot off in, had to have been, .3 seconds or less. It doesn’t matter if it’s contested. It looks the same every time. It’s coming off the same finger every time.”
Added Vann-Kelly, 17, a 6-foot-5 guard with Division I and pro aspirations and a recent graduate of Monterey Trail High: “He was making all of them. It was nothing but net. How (Curry) attacks, you can just tell why he’s at the pro level. All his moves are perfected. He has great patience, great skill overall.”
During one game, after Curry crossed up Kirkland for a step-back 3-pointer that rimmed out, Curry got the ball back off a pass and then made the game-winning 3 on his next attempt. He reflexively celebrated with his iconic “night night” gesture. A clip of the moment, shot by Brogan and posted to her Instagram, went viral.
Steph Curry hits the Night Night at an open run in Sacramento 😴😂🔥
(via jessicabrogan/ig) pic.twitter.com/kIPOodso1P
— TheWarriorsTalk (@TheWarriorsTalk) June 9, 2024
“He’s a generational player, his IQ,” Kirkland said. “He’s just different.”
Markus Kirkland guards NBA icon Stephen Curry during a pickup game in Folsom, Calif., on June 8. (Courtesy of Markus Kirkland)
But it wasn’t only Curry’s viral shots and elite ballhandling that left the gym buzzing. He impressed in another sense, according to those who were there. They noted how Curry introduced himself to each player and shook their hands. He asked for their names and told them not to be nervous.
“Guys were trying to give him the ball so he could do all the scoring and he was telling them, like, ‘No, we play team basketball. We’re not gonna play like that,’ ” Roseborough said. “He was actually setting up other guys to score. He was giving confidence to the players and other people that were there.”
After a series of eight or nine games — largely dominated by Curry and Bazemore, Kirkland said — the two took photos with the other players and the kids Kirkland invited to watch, including Brogan’s sons.
“He just made everybody around the building feel good,” Roseborough said. “He made everybody that was in there feel comfortable. And that was crazy to me, just how his energy really affected everybody in the building that much.”
(Top photo of Steph Curry and Kent Bazemore with other players: Courtesy of Marcus Kirkland)
new video loaded: The A.I. threat to audiobooks
By Alexandra Alter, Léo Hamelin and Laura Salaberry
May 20, 2026
At 53, and after more than a decade in the industry, things are happening for the romance writer Kennedy Ryan that were not on her bingo card.
The most recent: a first look deal with Universal Studio Group that will allow her to develop various projects, including a Peacock adaptation of her breakout 2022 novel “Before I Let Go,” the first book in her Skyland trilogy, which considers love and friendship among three Black women in a community inspired by contemporary Atlanta.
With a TV series in development, Ryan — who published her debut novel in 2014 and subsequently self-published — joins Tia Williams and Alanna Bennett at a table with few other Black romance writers.
“What I am most excited about is the opportunity to identify other authors’ work, especially marginalized authors, and to shepherd those projects from book to screen,” said Ryan, a former journalist. (Kennedy Ryan is a pen name.) “We are seeing an explosion in romance adaptations right now, and I want to see more Black, brown and queer authors.”
Her latest novel, “Score,” is set to publish on Tuesday. It’s the second volume in her Hollywood Renaissance series, after “Reel,” about an actress with a chronic illness who falls for her director on the set of a biopic set during the Harlem Renaissance. The new book follows a screenwriter and a musician, once romantically involved, working on the same movie.
In a recent interview (edited and condensed for clarity), Ryan shared the highs and lows of commercial success; her commitment to happy endings; and her north star. Spoiler: It isn’t what readers think of her books on TikTok.
Your work has been categorized as Black romance, but how do you see yourself as a writer?
I see myself as a romance writer. I think the season that I’m in right now, I’m most interested in Black romance, and that’s what I’ve been writing for the last few years. It doesn’t mean that I won’t write anything else, because I don’t close those doors. But the timeline we’re in is one where I really want to promote Black love, Black art and Black history.
What intrigued you about the period of history you capture in the Hollywood Renaissance series?
I’ve always been fascinated by the Harlem Renaissance and the years immediately following. It felt like a natural era to explore when I was examining overlooked accomplishments by Black creatives. I loved the art as agitation and resistance seen in the lives of people like James Baldwin or Zora Neale Hurston, but also figures like Josephine Baker, Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, who people may not think of as “revolutionary.” The fact that they were even in those spaces was its own act of rebellion.
What about that period feels resonant now?
The series celebrates Black art and Black history and love at a time when I see all three under attack. Our art is being diminished and our history is being erased before our very eyes. I don’t hold back on the relationship between what I see going on in the world and the books I write.
How does this moment in your career feel?
I didn’t get my first book deal until I was in my 40s, so I think this is the best job I’ve ever had. I’m wanting to make the most of it, not just for myself, but for other people, and I think the temptation is to believe that it will all go away because that’s my default.
Why would it all go away?
Part of it is because we — my family, my husband and I — have had some really hard times, especially early in our marriage when my son was diagnosed with autism, my husband lost his job, and we experienced hard times financially. I’ll never forget that.
When I say it could all go away, I mean things change, the industry changes, what people respond to changes, what people buy and want to consume changes. So I don’t assume that what I am doing is always going to be something that people want.
Why are you so firmly committed to defending the “happy ending” in romance novels?
It is integral to the definition of the genre that it ends happily. Some people will say it’s just predictable every one ends happily. I am fine with that, living in a world that is constantly bombarding us with difficulty, with hurt, with challenge.
I write books that are deeply curious about the human condition. In “Score,” the heroine has bipolar disorder, she’s bisexual, there’s all of this intersectionality. For me, there is no safer genre landscape to unpack these issues and these conditions because I know there is guaranteed joy at the end.
You have a pretty active TikTok account. How do you engage with reviews and commentary on the platform about you or the genre?
First of all, I believe that reader spaces are sacred. Sometimes I see authors get embroiled with readers who have criticized them. I never ever comment on critical reviews. I definitely do see the negative. It’s impossible for me not to, but I just kind of ignore it. I let it roll off.
How does this apply to being a very visible Black author in romance?
I am very cognizant of this space that I’m in right now, which is a blessing, and I don’t take it for granted. I see a lot of discourse online where people are like, “Kennedy’s not the only one,” “Why Kennedy?,” “There should be more Black authors.” And I’m like, Oh my God, I know that. I am constantly looking for ways to amplify other Black authors. I want to hold the door open and pull them along.
How do you define success for yourself at this point?
I have a little bit of a mission statement: I want to write stories that will crater in people’s hearts and create transformational moments. Whether it’s television or publishing, am I sticking true to what I feel like is one of the things I was put on this earth to do? I’m a P.K., or preacher’s kid. We’re always thinking about purpose. And for me, how do I fit into this genre? What is my lane? What is my legacy? Which sounds so obnoxious, you know, but legacy is very important to me.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights the screen adaptations of popular books for middle-grade and young adult readers. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. Scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their screen versions.
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