Seth Curry generally had his way with North Carolina in his three years at Duke, going 5-2 against the Blue Devils' most hated rivals, but he suggested Wednesday that he may have had trouble getting past a Tar Heel in the pros—his own head coach.
The former Duke shooting guard went on Adrian Wojnarowski's The Vertical Podcast when Wojnarowski asked about his struggles to get playing time for the Sacramento Kings under head coach George Karl, who played at North Carolina from 1970-1973. Curry acknowledged that Karl's bias against Blue Devils may have factored into his time on the bench.
"It felt like every single day, he would make a little Duke jab... I’m like, 'This is happening every single day, it might be a little real,'" Curry said on the podcast. "I don’t know if that’s the reason he didn’t play me on a consistent basis or whatever it was, but I used to hear people talk about how serious he was about it, and it was a tough time early on in that year."
Curry's year with the Kings was the most successful season of his career after he had played in a total of four games in his first three seasons combined, but the current Dallas Maverick didn't play much until the last month of the year. Curry said on the podcast he heard rumors that Karl was skeptical of his signing before he even got to Sacramento.
"When they were talking about signing me and things like that, he’d be like, ‘I don’t know about Duke players. I saw Seth can play, I saw what he can do, but I just don’t know how Duke players usually pan out in the league,'" Curry said.
When Curry finally made his way onto the court after the Kings fell out of playoff contention, he scored in double figures in 10 of their last 11 games. Sacramento fired Karl at the end of the 33-49 season.
Curry's strong finish to the year earned him a two-year, $6 million contract with the Mavericks in the offseason. Through 10 games, he is averaging 8.4 points and 2.8 assists per game but is shooting just 29.3 percent from 3-point range.
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