MINNEAPOLIS — Steph Curry deviated from his shooting routine after finishing his famous pregame warmup session at the Target Center last Wednesday.
Instead of heading back to the Warriors’ locker room, Curry meandered over to a family with seats on the baseline and struck up a conversation with Wyatt Neus.
Two months prior, Curry had promised to give Neus and his family tickets to the next Warriors-Timberwolves game. The Minnesota teenager with Down syndrome had gone viral on social media for burying a shot at Wayzata Central Middle School’s teacher-student game in a No. 30 jersey, and hitting Curry’s patented night-night celebration.
Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
“I just appreciate him and his family showing up,” Curry told the Bay Area News Group. “I saw the video, and any of those types of stories where they’re inspired by something I do and them having their moment are incredible.”
It was a promise kept, and then some. Curry spent several minutes conversing with Neus before signing older brother Owen’s hat and Wyatt’s jersey and then posing for a photo.
“I’m so happy,” Wyatt, 13, told the Bay Area News Group with a wide smile.
“My favorite part was how excited Wyatt was to introduce his brother to me and make sure that I didn’t just sign his jersey, but that I signed his brother’s hat too,” Curry said later. “You saw how selfless Wyatt was, and that was pretty cool.”
Wyatt has been a basketball fan since 2020, when parents Brooke and Eric put a mini-hoop in the family’s living room during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wyatt later joined GiGi’s Playhouse, an organization that supports children with Down syndrome as they get involved with sports.
His admiration for Curry was truly cemented in 2024, when, like millions of Americans, he watched Curry bury the shot that cemented Team USA’s gold medal over host France in the Paris Olympics.
“We have a photo of him going nuts when Steph hit the shot right at the end of the gold medal game,” Brooke said. “It sealed the deal.”
Wyatt has been a Curry superfan ever since, and his fandom reached the national stage on a TikTok posted by Brooke, with his own big-shot moment against his school’s teachers in May, complete with Curry’s iconic post-basket celebration. Her video received 50,000 views and later made national news, where it gained further notoriety.
When Warriors chief communications officer Raymond Ridder sent Curry the clip, Ridder received a video message meant for Wyatt just 10 minutes later.
“We get to play a game that a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life play, so there’s always a connection there,” Curry said in Minnesota. “So it sounds cheesy, but if you give somebody a sense of belief or hope or inspiration to do something special in their lives, and they find that energy from you, that means the world.”
Brooke remembers her son making the shot, but the moments after are just as meaningful to her.
“Unbelievable,” Brooke said. “Wyatt is a great athlete, and we’re always so proud of him. Really, it was the reaction from the school and seeing the support of the community and other kids, seeing them just absolutely go nuts … their reaction was priceless.”
A few months later, Wyatt was face-to-face with his hero. Both the kid and his family were now Curry fans for life.
“It says a lot about him that he took time out (of his day) and cares about the people and the fans, and that was really special,” father Eric said.
Memories continued to be made after that meeting. Wyatt and his family got to watch Curry put on a vintage performance and score a season-high 44 points against the hometown Timberwolves.
© 2026 MediaNews Group, Inc
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
