Over a decade ago, Ray Allen broke Reggie Miller’s all-time 3-pointer record with his 2,561st 3, reaching the pinnacle of shooting. Back then, 3,000 was just out of reach. And 4,000? That benchmark wasn’t even an idea; it was a fantasy. But that’s what Stephen Curry makes special– he makes the impossible possible. He makes 4,000 career 3s, a milestone in his storied career.

Just two 3s away from the unprecedented 4,000 career 3s mark, the four-time NBA Champion has a good chance of breaking the 3-point threshold Thursday night against the Sacramento Kings. But the point guard from Davidson College still takes every 3 he sinks in stride.

“I feel like I’m living a constant dream,” Curry explained last week. “It’s cool that there’s that joke that I set a new record every time I hit a three. But I try not to think about [the different benchmarks] too much, because last time I did, I psyched myself out for like a five-game stretch.”

A career once in jeopardy

For Curry, existing in this moment is easy because it wasn’t always guaranteed. Curry was plagued with multiple ankle injuries that threatened to derail his career early on. Bob Myers, former general manager of the Warriors, recalls Curry’s mindset during that early stretch of his career in an interview with ESPN’s Pablo Torre in 2016.

“Steph was sick and tired of it,” Myers recalled. “He said, ‘This ankle thing is not gonna be my life.’”

But when the ankle sprains began piling up, Curry’s career was in jeopardy– and it put the former seventh-overall pick in a dark place.

“I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but rehabbing for two years,” Curry told personal trainer, Brandon Payne following his second right ankle surgery in July 2012. “I feel like I’m never going to be able to play again.”

It took Curry changing the way his body functioned to save his career. Crediting Payne and former Warriors’ director of performance Keke Lyles, Curry worked on strengthening his core to ease the burden he was putting on his ankles.

In that 2012-13 season, Curry took the NBA by storm and led the league with 273 made threes. His capstone achievement that season was exploding for 54 points, with 11 made threes, on the road at Madison Square Garden. Curry transformed his ankle issues from a career-threatening concern to just another chapter in his Hall of Fame career.

Stephen Curry’s race to 4,000

Five years and three months into his career, Curry reached his 1000th career 3-pointer in his 369th game on January 8th, 2015. With the health of his ankles taken care of, the possibility of 2,000 and 3,000 became more and more real.

Here is a timeline of each of Curry’s 3-point benchmarks

• 0 – 1,000 threes: October 2009 – January 2015 (386 games)
• 1,000 – 2,000: January 2015 – December 2017 (229 games)
• 2,000 – 3,000: December 2017 – December 2021 (196 games)
• 3,000 – 4,000: December 2021 – March 2025 (219 games)

For context, Allen needed 1,300 games to set the initial 2,973 3-point record. Curry’s contemporary, James Harden, took 1,086 games to pass Allen’s mark this season. It’s taken Curry 1,012 games to reach 3,998 career 3s made, and that doesn’t even include all of the 3s he’s made in the playoffs.

To contextualize Curry’s unprecedented speed and volume from beyond the arc, Curry has 88 games with eight or more made 3s, which is more than the next three players combined, 45 games with nine or more made 3s, which is as many as the next five players combined, and 26 games with 10 or more 3s, which is as many as the next six players combined.

And Curry not only owns the single-season record of 402 made 3s, but also six of the next eleven spots on the most 3-pointers made in a single season list. He’s 13th all-time in career 3-point percentage (min. 250 3PM), shooting 42.4% from distance, which seems low for a shooter as accomplished as the Baby-Faced Assassin.

But none of the twelve players ahead of him averaged more than 4.7 three-point attempts a game while Curry averages 9.3 three-point attempts a game. He could miss his next 459 three-point attempts and still have a higher career three-point percentage than Allen.

What’s next for the greatest shooter ever?

With players shooting more 3-pointers than ever, there’s a chance Curry’s 4,000 mark milestone becomes just another benchmark for the next generation of shooters. Perhaps the 36-year-old will set his eyes on 5,000 3s.

Based on Curry’s typical pace, it would take another four or five seasons to reach that mark, taking him into his 40s.

But 5,000’s not the motivation for Curry right now. It’s chasing ring number five, as he explained in an interview with Steiny and Guru on 95.7 The Game.

“Someone asked me this summer, ‘What are you still playing for,’” Curry said. “[Number five], that’s literally the only thing.”

With Jimmy Butler next to him and Jonathan Kuminga coming back Thursday, Curry’s quest for a fifth NBA title looks more and more possible every day.