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An awful pitch and Riley Curry helped convince Steph to leave Nike (Ball Don't Lie)

In life and in business, first impressions are important; good ones can set the stage for long and fruitful relationships, and bad ones can come back to bite you. In the case of Nike and Stephen Curry, a rough start to a critical meeting might very well have been a multibillion-dollar inflection point in the athletic apparel game.

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ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss dropped a monster story on Wednesday, tracing the steps that led Curry to leave Nike for an endorsement deal with Under Armour in the summer of 2013.