Stephen Curry can’t get any love from the refs, and it’s all Wayne Gretzky’s fault.

There has to be a reason Our Little Steph gets to the line only about half as often as the league’s other elite high-scoring guards.

What’s up? The refs must hate or resent Curry, right? What other explanation can there be?

Curry should shoot more freebies, it would seem. It is generally acknowledged and accepted in the NBA that the refs have an unwritten priority system, similar to British royalty. If a king and a viscount arrive at the same event, the king gets the banquet with extra desert, and the viscount is lucky to get his Rolls valet-parked.

Whether NBA zebras do this intentionally or subconsciously, nobody knows, but the food chain for getting favorable calls is (in ascending order): rookies, reserves, starters, longtime starters, stars, superstars.

Kobe Bryant would get free throws if an opposing player bro-hugged him too vigorously before tip-off. Come on.

Curry, coming off back-to-back league MVPs, should be cashing in some of his respect equity. Instead, he’s panhandling for freebies. “Pleease, sir, I haven’t had an and-one in a week!”

It’s all Gretzky’s fault. Maybe when Steph was a kid, his dad would show the Curry boys video of The Great One destroying the NHL, and Li’l Steph translated Gretzky’s style to basketball.

Or maybe their similarity is a function of necessity. Both Gretzky and Curry are (or were) skinny, undersized, relatively unathletic dudes playing a contact sport. Every training camp, Gretzky’s teams would test the players for strength and skating speed, and Gretzky was usually the slowest and weakest. Then he’d score a million goals.

Gretzky’s amazing gift, and his style, was to locate places where the defense wasn’t, and get there, or get the puck there. He was the world’s baddest elf, all balance and cleverness and creative instinct.

Curry and Gretzky both rely on stick/ball skills vastly superior to mortal men, a genius for seeing the playing surface and sizing up an opponent, and the ability to stay cool.

A parent once mentioned to Gretzky that the parent’s kid was taking up hockey.

“Great,” said The Great One. “Tell him to keep the gloves on.”

Gretzky wasn’t a fighter, he was a lover — of winning.

I hear you out there. “Gretzky eluded defenders. Curry not so much, he gets smacked a lot when he drives, and that should earn him free throws, and it doesn’t.”

I did a little figuring, and it’s not your imagination or pro-Warriors’ bias telling you Curry doesn’t shoot many freebies.

This season, Curry’s per-game free-throw-attempt/field-goal-attempt ratio is 4.6/18.2, a percentage of 25.3. That means he is awarded one free throw for every four shots he attempts. Remember that 25.3.

James Harden’s number is 58.6. Shot-for-shot, he is sent to the line more than twice as often as Curry.

Russell Westbrook? He’s 44.7. And Isaiah Thomas is 44.4.

What’s up? Maybe it’s because Curry shoots so many threes, and you’re less likely to be fouled shooting a three than driving to the hoop?

Curry shoots 9.9 threes per game. Harden 9.1, Thomas 8.4, Westbrook 6.8. So Curry does shoot more threes, but not nearly enough to account for the disparity in free throws.

Many Warriors fans believe the refs don’t like or respect Curry. That’s a hard case to make. Curry barks at refs, sure, but not as often or as viciously as Harden and Westbrook do.

Do the refs, like Charles Barkley, resent the Warriors and Curry because they believe their jump-shooting style isn’t manly? The Rockets average nine more threes per game than the Warriors do.

I suggest it’s more about individual style.

Harden’s MO is to initiate contact and then embellish it. He perfected the Euro-step drive to the hoop, reaching his arms out and sweeping them up to draw contact, then grandly accentuating the contact, like a mime performing “Man Falling Clumsily Down Staircase.”

Westbrook is a bull in a bull shop. Every drive is a 4-yard touchdown run on a power sweep. Because he’s so quick and physical, Westbrook can collide with multiple defenders on his foray to the basket, increasing his chances of a foul call.

Curry tries to avoid contact. Less contact means fewer fouls. Oh, Curry gets hit, but because creating contact isn’t his game, he is a poor salesman. On the contrary, Curry is so graceful that even when he winds up on his backside after a shot, it almost looks like he landed there on purpose — Sully setting ’er down on the Hudson.

When Westbrook and Harden charge the paint, the refs pucker their lips around their whistles. When Curry attacks the rim and can’t avoid contact, it’s a bit of a surprise, even to the cagey officials.

The Warriors send video clips to the league office of Curry getting hammered and not getting calls. Every team does this for its players. The Lakers probably invented this practice in the Showtime Era when they felt Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was routinely mugged on the low block.

The Lakers’ pleas fell on deaf ears, and so it is now with the Warriors on behalf of Curry.

You can blame the refs. I blame Gretzky.

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler