Almost 25 years ago, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird starred in a series of commercials competing to make increasingly improbable shots to win that most rarefied of prizes, a Big Mac.
Like a game of horse on Mt. Olympus, the pair progressed from three-point bank shots to heaves from the rafters off the scoreboard. The closing image has them preparing to shoot from atop the Sears Tower.
My mind flashed back to this ad the other night after Steph Curry drained a shot from just inside the half court line to beat Oklahoma City in overtime, a game the Warriors led for all of 29 seconds. What Bird and Jordan pretended to do in an ad that required several cutaways, Curry seems to be doing in real life, and at crucial times.
The shot, eventually measured at 38 feet, felt like the apogee of the ridiculous run he and the Warriors are having, as they chase the single season record for victories set by Jordan's 1995-96 Bulls team.
Curry's bravado was so absurd, so unexpected, that Lebron James took to Twitter to declare that, quote, "Steph is not human." Coming from James, considered the world's best, as in most complete player, says something.