SAN FRANCISCO — The three-time champion wound his way through the tunnel outside the San Francisco Giants’ clubhouse after the most intense nine innings of this baseball season.
“Sorry,” Stephen Curry said, bumping fists with the Giants’ chief executive, Larry Baer.
“Hey, thanks, man,” Baer replied. “It was a gut-punch.”
The Giants won three titles in the 2010s, just before Curry’s Golden State Warriors did the same in the N.B.A. But the parade route always ends, and when rivals run you off the road, the path back to glory can be treacherous.
For the Giants, that meant four losing consecutive seasons after their last playoff berth, in 2016.