Viral video of NBA player Steph Curry making 5 full-court shots in a row is fake

Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry holds many professional basketball records, including becoming the first player in NBA history to make 500 postseason three-point shots.

Curry is also famous for his warmup routine, which often includes him making long-range shots from all over the court. It might not be too difficult for some Warriors fans to believe the NBA great could make five full-court shots in a row, as shown in a viral video that was shared by Sports Illustrated’s Twitter account.

“Just finished a shoot with @stephencurry30, this dude just can’t miss,” Sports Illustrated wrote in its tweet sharing the video, which has nearly 30 million views and more than 120,000 likes.

Some people on Twitter have questioned whether the video of Curry, who is Sports Illustrated’s 2022 Sportsperson of the Year, is real or edited.

THE QUESTION 

Is the viral video of Steph Curry making five full-court shots in a row real?

THE SOURCES

• Sports Illustrated
• Raymond Ridder, senior vice president of communications for the Golden State Warriors
• Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr
• Steph Curry

THE ANSWER

No, the viral video of Steph Curry making five full-court shots in a row isn’t real.

WHAT WE FOUND

Sports Illustrated writer Joseph Salvador acknowledged in an article published on Dec. 6 that the viral video of Curry making five full-court shots in a row is fake. 

“Stephen Curry’s viral video of him heaving, and making, five near-full-court shots in a row has dominated debates online on whether the video was legit or edited,” Salvador wrote. “Sadly, the video is, in fact, not real.”

Raymond Ridder, senior vice president of communications for the Warriors, said Sports Illustrated also informed him that the video is “not real.”

“I knew it was fake when he made five in a row,” Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said of the viral video during a pregame press conference on Dec. 5. “I thought three in a row, you know he could do that, but not five in a row.”

“I think just the fact that it’s Steph made people pause and wonder if it was real. So that’s all you need to know about Steph. Pretty remarkable,” he added.

In a postgame press conference on the same day, Curry said it’s “an ultimate compliment to probably be amazed by [the video] but not think it’s outlandish that it could be real.”

“I did make two of them, though, just in case anybody was wondering,” he added. 

The viral video of Curry was shot by Ari Fararooy, as Sports Illustrated noted in its tweet, who has helped to create other edited videos featuring professional athletes. Fararooy was also credited with creating a video of NFL quarterback Tom Brady playing catch with only a football machine, which VERIFY debunked in January 2021.

Fararooy is a video director based out of Los Angeles, who produces “stylized work for brands, events and celebrities,” according to his website. He has worked with Brady on a handful of other projects, each containing different elements of CGI effects. 

VERIFY reached out to Fararooy and Sports Illustrated for more information about how the video was shot and edited, but didn’t hear back at the time of publication.