It’s hard to imagine anything cooler for a 14-year-old hoops nut than a surprise visit and pizza party with an NBA star. But that’s exactly what happened last week for young Jeff Lorenz of Pennington, N.J. — thanks to an unexpected twist ending to a Facebook and Twitter contest by Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
“You could tell they were excited and enjoying it,” Curry told Mashable of Jeff and his buddies after the visit.
In January, Curry held his monthly #SC30 promotion, in which he presents a challenge to fans on social media for a special prize. This iteration had people submit their best trick shots for the chance to have Curry record an outgoing voicemail for their phone. Fans submitted shots to Curry via Twitter, then he picked five finalists for a public vote on his Facebook Page.
Lorenz’s shot, a long heave from a raised deck behind a hoop in his parents’ back yard, won the fan vote. Curry recorded an outgoing voice message telling callers “my man Jeff” is unavailable.
But then Jeff and his buddies cooked up another plan: On March 2, the Warriors would play in Philadelphia, about 45 minutes away from Pennington. So why not challenge Curry to come by and try to make the shot for himself?
“I was just kind of throwing it out there,” Jeff says. “I wasn’t expecting anyone as big as him to actually come to my house.”
But, says Curry, “I thought about it and it actually made sense.”
So the day before the Warriors played in Philadelphia, Curry drove out to New Jersey to take on the challenge of Jeff’s deck shot. Jeff invited more than a dozen friends over (“we were all pumped,” he says) and he and his parents laid out pizza and other party supplies. After hanging out for a bit, Curry sunk the trick shot on his ninth try .
“Jeff said when he filmed it, it took him 10 times, so I beat him by one,” Curry said. “He beat me at ping pong though. He’s nice at ping pong.”
Curry stuck around for a while to shoot around some more with Jeff and his friends, answer questions about his life in NBA and sign some autographs. Fittingly, after Curry left, Jeff showed his appreciation with a tweet:
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