Steph Curry's place in NBA lore beginning to dawn on him.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Just hours before Stephen Curry and his Golden State Warriors will go on to make 73-win history, he sits in a chair at the team’s practice facility and allows himself to ponder it all. Reflection doesn’t come easy at times like these, when the enormity of the moment demands a focus on the task at hand. The playoffs, and a title defense that will begin with a first-round matchup against the Houston Rockets that starts on Saturday, are just days away.

But Curry knows the magnitude of what’s happening here, this basketball evolution he’s leading that will forever change the game. And so he speaks, the man at the middle of the movement trying to get a good grip on what it all means. “I was watching some show where they were talking about Kobe’s last game,” the 27-year-old Curry told USA TODAY Sports. “And (they talked about) the fans who were my age, or a little younger, who didn’t get to see (Michael) Jordan play much but they saw Kobe play his whole career. … That was like passing the torch to him, (or) obviously LeBron (James) or whatever.” The epiphany, you see, is that the torch is in his hands right now. “For the youth that are watching today’s game and where it is, that would be something very special, in 15 or 20 years, (to) hear stories of kids growing up watching me play and being inspired by what I do on the floor, and how I play the game and what not,” Curry continued. “I have certain guys who I looked up to. Jordan, Kobe, those guys. Passing that on to doing my part to kind of keep that influence of basketball where it should be is kind of why I play the game.”