Surrounded by a sea of green-clad Celtics fans, the elder Curry was easy to spot along the baseline with his cigar in hand in preparation for his son’s fourth NBA title.

‘You know, out there on the floor, I didn’t even know he was down there, to be honest with you,’ Curry said. ‘I saw him and I lost it, and I knew the clock was kind of running out. I just wanted to take in the moment because it was that special.’

Curry, who had grown up watching Dell play for the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors, has shared these sorts of embraces before, both as the supportive son and later as an NBA champion.

But coming off of two disappointing seasons, the final moments of Thursday’s Game 6 just felt different for Curry.

The Warriors dynasty was thought to be derailed after Kevin Durant left for Brooklyn as a free agent in 2019 and Klay Thompson was sidelined for two seasons by a pair of career-threatening injuries. Golden State finished in the NBA’s basement in 2020 and was eliminated in the play-in tournament before the 2021 postseason.

But if his previous three titles proved Curry was a Hall of Famer, his fourth league crown and his first Finals MVP award cemented him as one of the game’s most resilient champions. Longtime teammate Andre Iguodala said Curry has proven he’s ‘best point guard of all-time,’ while head coach, Steve Kerr, characterized the 2022 Finals as Curry’s ‘crowning achievement.’

‘Talking about just me personally, my workouts from the off-season last year when we lost in the play-in tournament, it’s been a year and six days that I started the process of getting ready for this season,’ Curry told reporters. ‘It all paid off. Didn’t know how it was going to happen. Didn’t know what the environment was going to be like. You imagine what the emotions are going to be like, but it hits different.’

For those unfamiliar with Curry, or his expansive NBA family, his has been a unique basketball journey.

Curry was born in the same Akron, Ohio hospital four years after the city’s favorite son, LeBron James. At the time, in 1988, the sharp-shooting Dell was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but would go on to make a name for himself with the Hornets while helping to popularize the 3-point shot around the NBA.

Dell ultimately finished his career in Toronto, where Stephen Curry would often be seen hoisting up shots alongside his father and younger brother Seth at what was then known as the Air Canada Centre.

The family, along with mother Sonya and sister Sydel, moved back to the Charlotte area after Dell’s retirement in 2002, and Seth became a high school standout at a local Christian school with eyes on following in his father’s footsteps to Virginia Tech. (Sydel is now married to Warriors guard Daimon Lee, while Sonya has recently filed for divorce from Dell)

The problem was, for all of his shooting ability, Curry’s release point was far too low for the college game. A shot coming from his waist could easily blocked by taller players in the NCAA, so the slender, 160-pound guard was forced to rework his shooting form at a time when college recruiters were scrutinizing his chances at the next level.

He and Dell spent the summer before his sophomore year reworking his jumper with a seemingly endless regimen of drills.

‘[It was] the most frustrating summer for me,’ Curry told Sports Illustrated in 2013.

‘I really couldn’t shoot outside the paint for like the first three weeks,’ he continued. ‘All summer when I was at camps people were like, ‘Who are you, why are you playing basketball?’ I was really that bad for a month and a half [before] I finally figured it out.’

As a result, Curry was offered only a walk-on spot at Virginia Tech, and ultimately took a scholarship offer from tiny Davidson — an unheralded basketball program surrounded by powerhouses like Duke and the University of North Carolina.

It could have easily been the last anyone heard from the Curry family, but instead, the suddenly 6-foot-3 point guard finally started hitting 3-pointers. First he hit 40.8 percent from deep as a freshman, before improving to a remarkable 43.9 percent as a sophomore while setting an NCAA record for most 3-pointers made in a season (162).

And while his junior year mark of 38.7 percent was a step backwards, he still led the nation in scoring at 28.6 points per game.

Curry would be picked by the Warriors with the seventh selection of the 2009 NBA Draft, and would soon be joined by Thompson, his fellow Splash Brother, as well as Draymond Green and, in 2014, Kerr.

Since then, Curry has helped revolutionize the game by making more 3-pointers than any player in NBA history (3,117), and making the shot an essential piece of every successful team’s arsenal.

He’s eight All-Star selections, two NBA MVP awards, four NBA First Team nods, and is considered by many to be the greatest shooter in NBA history, if not one of the greatest ball handlers as well. And if the awards aren’t impressive enough, he’s also earned $254 million in salary from the Warriors, and has four years and roughly $210 million remaining on his current contract.

But for all of his accolades, Curry has never seemed more deserving than he does now, as a four-time NBA champion and Finals MVP.

‘For Steph to win a finals MVP, and I know he said it don’t matter … but to add that to your resume as a competitor, you want that,’ Green said. ‘For him, well deserved. It’s been a long time in the making. But he left no doubt. Left no doubt. He carried us. And we’re here as champions.’