This 11-year-old can dribble just like Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving
Evidently, Stephen Curry’s inspiring young basketball lovers to work on a heck of a lot more than just chucking up 3-pointers from 30 feet out. Take a look at the move-for-move ball-handling mimicry of 11-year-old Noah Cutler of Leesberg, Va., who sure seems to have been inspired by the Golden State Warriors superstar to focus on handling the rock at least as much as heaving it:
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He’s even working on versions of the two-balls-at-once dribbling drills for which Curry has become so famous:
And young Noah won’t stop at just perfecting Steph’s locked-in pregame routine. He’s also working on cribbing some moves from Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Kyrie Irving, who seems like a pretty good ball-handler to aspire to copy, if you ask me:
He’s also a big fan of Washington Wizards All-Star John Wall, whom he got to meet at a basketball camp:
… and even got to strut his stuff on the court during a recent Wizards game:
Those are some impressive handles for a fifth-grader. (Heck, they’re impressive for anyone.) They’re also the result of an impressive commitment, as his father told WJLA-TV back in September:
Noah says he trains in the gym two-to-three hours a day, every day.
“I think if it was too much he would tell me. We don’t really have to push him. He’s the one that says ‘Dad, when are we going to the gym?'”
Noah spends that time in the gym because he’s eager to follow in Curry’s footsteps in another way — by being skilled enough that being comparatively small in stature (just 4-foot-3, according to BuzzFeed’s Leticia Miranda) doesn’t get in the way of getting buckets.
Noah told BuzzFeed News that he’s often underestimated by his opponents because of his height. He recalled a time when he was playing a one-on-one practice game with an opposing team.
“Someone smiled at me because I’m small,” he said. “Then I squared on him.”
That’s the kind of confidence that all those hours in the gym, and all the blink-and-you-miss-it moves developed as a result, can buy you. Young Noah’s a long way away from his dreams of playing college ball on a scholarship before heading to the pros, but he might already be well on his way to becoming the next Brandon Armstrong while he continues to work toward becoming the next Stephen Curry.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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