Nike had the opportunity to keep Stephen Curry during the 2013 offseason after he started 78 games and help lead the Golden State Warriors to the Western Conference Finals.

Curry's godfather, Greg Brink, works for Nike and he also wore the shoes growing up. Curry wore Nike at Davidson and wore Nike Zoom Hyperfuse for his 54-point game in 2013 at Madison Square Garden.

"I was with them for years," Curry says as part of an excellent feature story by ESPN's Ethan Sherwood Strauss. "It's kind of a weird process being pitched by the company you're already with. There was some familiar faces in there."

According to Nick DePaula of The Vertical, Nike has signed 68 percent of NBA players, more than 74 percent if you include Nike's Jordan Brand subsidiary.

Nike met with Curry in August and LeBron James' adviser Lynn Merritt was not present as Nico Harrison, a sports marketing director at the time ran the meeting.

Curry wanted to run a Nike-sponsored camp, which matter deeply to elite players.

Curry's friend and former roommate Chris Strachan recalls of 2013, "That summer, when it was really decision time, [Nike] were looking at Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis coming up. They gave Kyrie a camp and they gave Anthony Davis a camp. They didn't give Steph a camp."

One Nike official accidentally addressed Stephen as "Steph-on," the moniker of Steve Urkel's alter ego in Family Matters. "I heard some people pronounce his name wrong before," says Dell Curry. "I wasn't surprised. I was surprised that I didn't get a correction."

A PowerPoint slide featured Kevin Durant's name, presumably left from repurposed materials.

As someone familiar with Nike's marketing operation says, in regard to Curry: "Everything that makes him human and cuddly and an unlikely monster is anathema to Nike. They like studs with tight haircuts and muscles." 

Curry ended up signing with Under Armour and his deal currently runs through 2024. Under Armour was interested in Curry leading up to the 2009 draft but he already signed with Nike.

Under Armour's in with Curry was actually through Kent Bazemore. The brand would send Bazemore box after box and the gear was all over the Warriors' practice facility.

"Yeah, I have no shame when it comes to branding," said Bazemore. "I'll throw Under Armour's name, anything I'm a part of. I'll speak so highly of it. And Steph's like, 'My deal is up.' " Bazemore seized the opening. "I'm like, 'Man, come over here, get your own shoe.' I hadn't talked to anybody at Under Armor about this. I was making all these promises, like 'Get your own shoe, you're the face of the game,' sending out all these hypotheticals. I haven't talked to anyone over there."

Bazemore now makes six figures annually with Under Armour, which is a high figure considering his profile.

Nike retained Curry's matching rights when he agreed to a deal with Under Armour, but they let him go.

According to a Sept. 16, 2015, report from ESPN's Darren Rovell, "Nike failed to match a deal worth less than $4 million a year."