ESPN NBA top 100 for 2022

[WarriorGM]

I don't have to. The person you're arguing with has already done that for me. The problem is that you are outright disregarding it because it proves you wrong.

Prez's use of faulty parallelism ends up as nonsense and proves nothing. That you cannot see that shows poor grasp of logic. His reliance on SRS to support his point while ignoring the Warriors influence on the SRS and win % of his opponents and the consequences of the Warriors being so dominant in the regular season also leaves something to be desired as applied to the 2015 season. Reliance on SRS when applied to the 2021 and 2022 period also favors Curry since the 2022 Celtics are a higher SRS team than the 2021 Suns. So overall even using his given methodology, he still ends up suggesting Curry is a better player currently.

I also love that you are continuing this mentality of "you guys are the ones who are dumb, I'm the only one who is making any sense". It just exposes your very obvious insecurities. You want us so badly to believe that Curry is as great as you think he is but the simple fact of the matter is, none of us will because he's not. This is what happens when you let blind fandom get in the way of logic.

Why should I be insecure? My guy won as I said he probably would despite the majority of you acting as if he had no shot. No, what this exchange more likely shows is your projected insecurities. Many of you were anticipating Curry to float into irrelevance without Durant and yet here is winning another championship and now a lot of you are doubling down on anyone except Curry being the best in the league. Merely shows what happens when people are in denial and cannot accept reality.

You just outright stated why your logic doesn’t work here. If the Warriors were so dominant that season that they affected the SRS scores of other teams to the point where it wasn’t even close, that at the very least means that those teams weren’t on par with the warriors. It gets even worse when context is applied. Those same teams were missing key players due to injury. The warriors weren’t. So on top of already being much better, those teams weren’t even at full strength. The teams the Bucks faced on the other hand, just going off SRS scores, were not only better but they were closer to the Bucks. That at the very least suggests that the Bucks faced tougher competition that was closer to their level, and considering how one of those teams took the Bucks to seven games, I have good reason to believe that.

If that’s not the case, you haven’t given us a reason to suggest otherwise. How are any of those three teams that the Warriors faced better than the Nets? Hell what about the Hawks? Why shouldn’t I take the Hawks over them? And that’s still not even mentioning the fact that the Suns were undoubtedly a better team than the Cavs were. It’s not even close in that department.

In other words, his logic at the very least proves that Giannis faced better competition. And considering how he was far more dominant, I have every reason to hold his run too much higher esteem than Curry’s. If there’s data and/or an argument out there that suggests otherwise, you haven’t provided it yet. And given the crap you’ve spewed in the past ( as well as what you’re spewing now), I seriously doubt that’s going to change.

Your interpretation of his logic is basically that closer parity proves stronger competition. That is a fallacy. You could have a very tight varsity league with many of its top teams of comparable strength but if you had them play the NBA team with the worst record they'd still probably be all worse. Of course the teams we're talking about are in the NBA and comparisons of teams from different time periods is mainly guessing and theorizing but the same principle applies.

A more logical way of thinking is looking at commonalities and putting them in context. For example Chris Paul at his peak could not get to the finals in 2015 and the surrounding years. However, past his peak he finally brought a team to the finals. That's one point in favor of thinking the opposition in 2015 was stronger than in 2021. You can come up with reasons to explain this logical discrepancy—but you have to come up with reasons and you and everyone else as far as I can see haven't.

We have just seen Curry lead a team that beat MVP and First Team All-NBA Jokic, the team with the second best record in the league and Second Team All-NBA Ja Morant, First Team All-NBA Doncic, and the team that swept KD and beat Giannis with First Team All-NBA Tatum. Giannis hasn't shown that kind of dominance.

[nikster]

Giannis had an all time easy path in 2021. Definitely easier than Curry did in '15.

The Suns were the only decent team they faced.

Heat were a mess. Nets missing Harden/Kyrie. Hawks missing Trae.

They honestly had an easier cakewalk to the Finals than LeBron ever did.

Rockets were a mess. Memphis missing Conley and Allen. Pelicans just another first round team. Cavs all stars missing more time then the Nets.

Easier cakewalk to the finals then Lebron ever did

No the Rockets weren't a mess in 2015; they were a mess the following year. The Warriors' highest paid player played less minutes in the entire playoffs than either Conley or Allen did in that one series. The Pelicans had a 45-37 record with a 54.9% win rate, a win rate that would be the 3rd highest of any 8th seed in either conference in the years since 2015. The Cavaliers swept their conference finals with the lineup they had regardless while the Nets lost in the round their injuries struck.

Your attempts at parallelism could use work.

Nobody is winning the title with the team Jokic or Luka had last year. If only the winning is important, than we should always give the MVP award to the best player of the best team in RS, especially if they win RS with a big margin. It would have been hilarious, if Booker had won MVP last year.

The Mavericks won more games without Luka than the Warriors did without Curry.

Houston was a first round exit the years before and after. Didn't you use different seasons performance as a reason to diminish the sun's?

[WarriorGM]

Rockets were a mess. Memphis missing Conley and Allen. Pelicans just another first round team. Cavs all stars missing more time then the Nets.

Easier cakewalk to the finals then Lebron ever did

No the Rockets weren't a mess in 2015; they were a mess the following year. The Warriors' highest paid player played less minutes in the entire playoffs than either Conley or Allen did in that one series. The Pelicans had a 45-37 record with a 54.9% win rate, a win rate that would be the 3rd highest of any 8th seed in either conference in the years since 2015. The Cavaliers swept their conference finals with the lineup they had regardless while the Nets lost in the round their injuries struck.

Your attempts at parallelism could use work.

Nobody is winning the title with the team Jokic or Luka had last year. If only the winning is important, than we should always give the MVP award to the best player of the best team in RS, especially if they win RS with a big margin. It would have been hilarious, if Booker had won MVP last year.

The Mavericks won more games without Luka than the Warriors did without Curry.

Houston was a first round exit the years before and after. Didn't you use different seasons performance as a reason to diminish the sun's?

The Suns were a favorite around here leading into the 2022 playoffs to win a championship. The Rockets were not a favorite to win a championship in 2016. Are you too dense to see the difference? Do you need the logical inferences to be spelled out for you?

[greekman]

my top 20 FOR 2022 are

1 kawhi
2 curry
3 jokic
4 doncic
5 giannis
6 butler
7 morant
8 durant
9 embiid
10 tatum
11 james
12 trae
13 AD
14 siakam
15 lillard
16 DM
17 derozan
18 wiggins
19 brown
20 CJ

[baldur]

What's this love for Shia? The guy missed 50 games per season yet he is treated like a franchise cornerstone superstar. He is already missing the start of this season as well.

[Hobo4President]

No, I am saying Curry elevates his team mates.

Of course Curry wouldn't have won without his team-mates and I give full credit to them for their play but their excellence is being proclaimed post hoc. Wiggins was derided, literally no other team wanted GPII, there were strong contributions from 2 other vet minimum guys, Kevon Looney was unwanted by other teams when he signed his previous contract with GSW, Thompson was coming off two and a half years away from the game with 2 career threatening injuries, Green missed a third of the season with a back injury and was widely considered well past it, etc, etc. Imo the GSW system which as Kerr himself says is Curry based allows many players to realise their talent/play at their best; not all players of course, cf Kelly Oubre. If this board had acclaimed the elite stature of his team-mates, particularly Andrew Wiggins who was so good in the finals, before the season I might have been less inclined to make the comment you quoted.

Everyone agrees he elevates his teammates. He can both elavate his teammates and have a better supporting cast than another player.

As I said this was a post hoc judgement. No one considered GSW to have the best team before the season started, and there wasn’t even much in the way of a consensus about them having more talent than the Celtics before the finals.

Playing with Curry and/or developing next to Curry his team-mates were better. My point was that this is not unrelated to Curry, including his team ethic, unselfishness as a player and leadership. It is actually true imo that Wiggins of whom I am a big fan is a significantly talented player who advantaged GSW. He also was derided as a bust/the worst contract in the NBA before he got next to Curry and realised his talent.

It's not post-hoc. I'll ask you again, as a Warriors fan would you be happy if there was a swap between Curry's supporting cast and either Jokic's or Doncic's?

[michaelm]

Everyone agrees he elevates his teammates. He can both elavate his teammates and have a better supporting cast than another player.

As I said this was a post hoc judgement. No one considered GSW to have the best team before the season started, and there wasn’t even much in the way of a consensus about them having more talent than the Celtics before the finals.

Playing with Curry and/or developing next to Curry his team-mates were better. My point was that this is not unrelated to Curry, including his team ethic, unselfishness as a player and leadership. It is actually true imo that Wiggins of whom I am a big fan is a significantly talented player who advantaged GSW. He also was derided as a bust/the worst contract in the NBA before he got next to Curry and realised his talent.

It's not post-hoc. I'll ask you again, as a Warriors fan would you be happy if there was a swap between Curry's supporting cast and either Jokic's or Doncic's?

In case you are unaware which seems likely post hoc means after the fact. Of course I am happy with last year’s GSW roster and how they melded as a team, my point is that few considered them to have a talent advantage over several of the teams who made the play-offs at the start of the season, at the end of the regular season before the play-offs, or even in the case of the Celtics immediately before the finals.

GSW did what they have done during their run, built a cohesive team around their core and played team basketball. Perhaps I am naive, but this to me has always been to their credit rather than deserving of gripes about advantages. If they had a talent advantage it was at least partly from players no-one else wanted such as Wiggins, GPII, Bjelica and Looney, as well as Draymond Green, widely derided as Mr Triple Single. If other franchises can’t recognise unpolished diamonds that is their problem imo. GSW have also had their share of injuries over the last 8 years but have just got on with it, obviously prevailing to win a 4th title with significant contributions from players uninvolved in the previous finals appearances and titles.

You are welcome to your opinion, but mine is that the jury is out on whether a similar team culture and team system can be built on the foundation of Embiid or Doncic. Jokic is a different matter, a great offensive talent and a great team player, but whether a team dependent on him being on the floor offensively can be good enough defensively to win a title with the way current NBA basketball is played and officiated is also in question, again imo.

[Rainwater]

Giannis, Joker, Embiid, and Doncic got more MVP votes? Which one of them led his team to more wins than Curry this year? Oh right, none of them. Who won a championship this year? Curry. Some things matter more than others. MVP votes these days don't. Indeed the last time an MVP award seemed to signal something notable was when Curry went unanimous. He broke the award by doing so. The voters have ever since tried to avoid selecting him and have been producing choices that can start looking really inane years from now.

A championship is a TEAM accomplishment not an individual accomplishment. A win is a TEAM accomplishment not a individual accomplishment. Just because Curry won a championship doesn't mean he is the best player in the NBA it just means he has the best team. I hate win people conflate the two.

The Warriors had 3 all stars not including one who was coming off injury and a 6th man candidate in Poole. Of course they were title contenders and leaders in wins.

Exactly. Basketball is a team sport, I am a fan of team play, and Curry is one of the most team focused superstars in the history of the the NBA, probably the biggest reason for my fandom.

I don't consider individual player statistics in the regular season to weigh more heavily than being the best player in the play-offs and leading a team to a title, the actual object of the sport, as you appear to be arguing, however. No doubt at all Jokic was the best player in the regular season and that his team was affected by injuries, and that some players are in situations/with franchises that will never give them a chance to win because they are not free agent destinations etc. What I don't know is whether his playing style which works so well in the regular season translates to ultimate success in the play-offs and in particular whether you can have a strong enough defense including perimeter defense with him as the lynch pin of your team putting in tremendous effort on the offensive side. I have doubts about Doncic defensively deep in the play-offs as well, and Embiid has had a number of chances in the play-offs without really delivering.

What I tire of is the diminishment of Curry on the basis of him having good team-mates, a standard not applied to other top players, the opposite standard in fact often being applied ie that it is the fault of their team-mates that they are not winning, as you are pretty much doing imo. GSW were bottom dwellers who couldn't attract a decent FA for 40 years before Curry, Sure they had a change to a superior ownership group who made good decisions including in regard to coaching, but it is all built on Curry. Even with the KD version of the team which undeniably did possess overwhelming talent Curry played a team game and facilitated KD to be the most effective he has ever been or very likely will ever be imo.

I don't think I ever diminished Curry for having great teammates. In my earlier post in fact, I mentioned that Curry was arguably one of the best players in 2016 on the greatest team created. All I am saying is that championships are team accomplishments and just because you win a championship doesn't necessarily make you the best player in the league. And at the current moment I would not consider Curry a better player than Doncic, Embiid, Joker, or Giannis. That is it.

For example, LeBron has been overwhelmly the best player in the game for the majority of his career but you would find it difficult for someone to say he wasn't just because he didn't win every single championship.

[Bob8]

As I said this was a post hoc judgement. No one considered GSW to have the best team before the season started, and there wasn’t even much in the way of a consensus about them having more talent than the Celtics before the finals.

Playing with Curry and/or developing next to Curry his team-mates were better. My point was that this is not unrelated to Curry, including his team ethic, unselfishness as a player and leadership. It is actually true imo that Wiggins of whom I am a big fan is a significantly talented player who advantaged GSW. He also was derided as a bust/the worst contract in the NBA before he got next to Curry and realised his talent.

It's not post-hoc. I'll ask you again, as a Warriors fan would you be happy if there was a swap between Curry's supporting cast and either Jokic's or Doncic's?

In case you are unaware which seems likely post hoc means after the fact. Of course I am happy with last year’s GSW roster and how they melded as a team, my point is that few considered them to have a talent advantage over several of the teams who made the play-offs at the start of the season, at the end of the regular season before the play-offs, or even in the case of the Celtics immediately before the finals.

GSW did what they have done during their run, built a cohesive team around their core and played team basketball. Perhaps I am naive, but this to me has always been to their credit rather than deserving of gripes about advantages. If they had a talent advantage it was at least partly from players no-one else wanted such as Wiggins, GPII, Bjelica and Looney, as well as Draymond Green, widely derided as Mr Triple Single. If other franchises can’t recognise unpolished diamonds that is their problem imo. GSW have also had their share of injuries over the last 8 years but have just got on with it, obviously prevailing to win a 4th title with significant contributions from players uninvolved in the previous finals appearances and titles.

You are welcome to your opinion, but mine is that the jury is out on whether a similar team culture and team system can be built on the foundation of Embiid or Doncic. Jokic is a different matter, a great offensive talent and a great team player, but whether a team dependent on him being on the floor offensively can be good enough defensively to win a title with the way current NBA basketball is played and officiated is also in question, again imo.

Not every team can pay 360 mio for their roster. I'm sure everyone would have taken Wiggins, if they could afford to pay that much tax.

[TheLand13]

Your interpretation of his logic is basically that closer parity proves stronger competition. That is a fallacy. You could have a very tight varsity league with many of its top teams of comparable strength but if you had them play the NBA team with the worst record they'd still probably be all worse. Of course the teams we're talking about are in the NBA and comparisons of teams from different time periods is mainly guessing and theorizing but the same principle applies.

Okay, but that doesn't disprove my point. If I have two sets of teams from different time frames, and one set is shown to have better stats across the board (and in this case using SRS as an example), I have every reason to believe that those teams were better. Of course you are very easily welcome to explaining why that's not the case, but the problem is that you haven't done that yet. You haven't given me any reason to believe that's not the case, or the other person for that matter. All you've done so far is say "you're wrong" and you've left it at that.

A more logical way of thinking is looking at commonalities and putting them in context. For example Chris Paul at his peak could not get to the finals in 2015 and the surrounding years. However, past his peak he finally brought a team to the finals. That's one point in favor of thinking the opposition in 2015 was stronger than in 2021. You can come up with reasons to explain this logical discrepancy—but you have to come up with reasons and you and everyone else as far as I can see haven't.

I just... what?

How does Chris Paul going to the Finals in 2021 prove that the competition in 2021 was weaker than the competition in 2015? We are talking about the competition GIANNIS faced that season, not Paul. They are in completely different conferences, with different teams going through different circumstances. And keep in mind, that was a season where a lot of people felt the East had stronger playoff teams than the West did (a belief that I actually agree). And I want to make sure I mark this part as a point of reference when you inevitably claim that I don't come up with reasons. This one reason alone kills your argument, and that required almost no effort on my part.

Oh but there's more.

There are a multitude of factors that go into how someone can manage to lead a team to the finals one season but not the other. Going by your logic, the reason the Dallas Mavericks didn't make the finals in 2007 (where they lost in the first round to the 8th seeded Warriors) but won it in 2011 (which was when they swept the defending champion Lakers, beat the incredibly talented and young OKC team with Durant/Westbrook/Harden/Ibaka and beat the Miami Heat with their new big three) was because they faced weaker competition. And don't even act like that's the only instance. I can easily come up with over a dozen more if I wanted to.

In the case of 2021, Paul experienced a combination of factors, some of which involved luck (Davis and Murray getting injured), and the rest of which was the result of Paul being on one of the best teams of his career. A lot of people tend to forget this, but the 2021 Suns were a really good team, and same with the 2022 one (obviously). It was the best coach Paul had ever played for, with a really great supporting cast that fit his style of play almost to perfection and they were a deep team as well. They ran into the team that had Giannis on it unfortunately, and they couldn't stop him (too bad the Cavaliers couldn't say the same thing about Curry in 2015).

We have just seen Curry lead a team that beat MVP and First Team All-NBA Jokic, the team with the second best record in the league and Second Team All-NBA Ja Morant, First Team All-NBA Doncic, and the team that swept KD and beat Giannis with First Team All-NBA Tatum. Giannis hasn't shown that kind of dominance.

We aren't talking about that level of dominance. That's not what this debate is about. We are talking about the runs Curry and Giannis had in 2015 and 2021 respectively. You said the one Curry had in 2015 was better. Talking about what Curry did in 2022, which is seven years later in case you can't count, doesn't prove that theory to be correct. If anything, it just continues to prove my point.

But okay. Let's talk about this season for a moment actually using context, something you never like to do. Curry beat the team with the MVP on it who was missing two of his best teammates (and managed to still get a win, something he couldn't do against the Suns last season), beat the Grizzlies who were without Ja Morant (the second team all NBA player that you didn't hesitate to mention) for the final two games of the series, avoided the best team in the NBA because they choked against the Mavericks who had no business being that far in the playoffs (the team that you mentioned had first team all NBA Doncic, but who also had arguably a worse supporting cast than LeBron did in his first stint with Cleveland), and then faced the Boston Celtics, where he was incredibly dominant and could not be stopped despite this being, without question, the best defensive team he had ever faced in the finals.

And keep in mind, before that finals series, there was nothing noteworthy or special about Curry's performance in the playoffs leading up to it. He has had far better playoff series performances in the past leading up to the 2022 Finals, which were without question the best playoff series performance he's ever had. Hell, Klay Thompson, a guy a lot of people pointed out wasn't back to his old self in the 2022 post season, led the Warriors in scoring in three of the six games in that playoff series against the Grizzlies. You say Giannis has never been that dominant? Then I strongly recommend you brush up on your NBA history, because you're in for a pretty rude awakening if you think GIannis has never been that good in the playoffs before.

[michaelm]

Posted in error.

[michaelm]

It's not post-hoc. I'll ask you again, as a Warriors fan would you be happy if there was a swap between Curry's supporting cast and either Jokic's or Doncic's?

In case you are unaware which seems likely post hoc means after the fact. Of course I am happy with last year’s GSW roster and how they melded as a team, my point is that few considered them to have a talent advantage over several of the teams who made the play-offs at the start of the season, at the end of the regular season before the play-offs, or even in the case of the Celtics immediately before the finals.

GSW did what they have done during their run, built a cohesive team around their core and played team basketball. Perhaps I am naive, but this to me has always been to their credit rather than deserving of gripes about advantages. If they had a talent advantage it was at least partly from players no-one else wanted such as Wiggins, GPII, Bjelica and Looney, as well as Draymond Green, widely derided as Mr Triple Single. If other franchises can’t recognise unpolished diamonds that is their problem imo. GSW have also had their share of injuries over the last 8 years but have just got on with it, obviously prevailing to win a 4th title with significant contributions from players uninvolved in the previous finals appearances and titles.

You are welcome to your opinion, but mine is that the jury is out on whether a similar team culture and team system can be built on the foundation of Embiid or Doncic. Jokic is a different matter, a great offensive talent and a great team player, but whether a team dependent on him being on the floor offensively can be good enough defensively to win a title with the way current NBA basketball is played and officiated is also in question, again imo.

Not every team can pay 360 mio for their roster. I'm sure everyone would have taken Wiggins, if they could afford to pay that much tax.

Again after the fact. Sure any team which could afford him would want him after his performances in the play-offs and on the finals in particular, but GSWcwere widely derided/laughed at for taking on his contract in the first place, and Eighons was widely disrespected for most of the regular season including his all-star selection being considered by many to be unwarranted/a joke/down to the large GSW fan base.

[Hobo4President]

As I said this was a post hoc judgement. No one considered GSW to have the best team before the season started, and there wasn’t even much in the way of a consensus about them having more talent than the Celtics before the finals.

Playing with Curry and/or developing next to Curry his team-mates were better. My point was that this is not unrelated to Curry, including his team ethic, unselfishness as a player and leadership. It is actually true imo that Wiggins of whom I am a big fan is a significantly talented player who advantaged GSW. He also was derided as a bust/the worst contract in the NBA before he got next to Curry and realised his talent.

It's not post-hoc. I'll ask you again, as a Warriors fan would you be happy if there was a swap between Curry's supporting cast and either Jokic's or Doncic's?

In case you are unaware which seems likely post hoc means after the fact. Of course I am happy with last year’s GSW roster and how they melded as a team, my point is that few considered them to have a talent advantage over several of the teams who made the play-offs at the start of the season, at the end of the regular season before the play-offs, or even in the case of the Celtics immediately before the finals.

GSW did what they have done during their run, built a cohesive team around their core and played team basketball. Perhaps I am naive, but this to me has always been to their credit rather than deserving of gripes about advantages. If they had a talent advantage it was at least partly from players no-one else wanted such as Wiggins, GPII, Bjelica and Looney, as well as Draymond Green, widely derided as Mr Triple Single. If other franchises can’t recognise unpolished diamonds that is their problem imo. GSW have also had their share of injuries over the last 8 years but have just got on with it, obviously prevailing to win a 4th title with significant contributions from players uninvolved in the previous finals appearances and titles.

You are welcome to your opinion, but mine is that the jury is out on whether a similar team culture and team system can be built on the foundation of Embiid or Doncic. Jokic is a different matter, a great offensive talent and a great team player, but whether a team dependent on him being on the floor offensively can be good enough defensively to win a title with the way current NBA basketball is played and officiated is also in question, again imo.

Wait, so you're not using post-hoc to suggest a logical fallacy? I mean of course, me saying Curry might have a better supporting cast than some superstars does not mean I think he has a better supporting cast than every star in the league. It doesn't even suggest I think he has a top supporting cast.

[WarriorGM]

Your interpretation of his logic is basically that closer parity proves stronger competition. That is a fallacy. You could have a very tight varsity league with many of its top teams of comparable strength but if you had them play the NBA team with the worst record they'd still probably be all worse. Of course the teams we're talking about are in the NBA and comparisons of teams from different time periods is mainly guessing and theorizing but the same principle applies.

Okay, but that doesn't disprove my point. If I have two sets of teams from different time frames, and one set is shown to have better stats across the board (and in this case using SRS as an example), I have every reason to believe that those teams were better. Of course you are very easily welcome to explaining why that's not the case, but the problem is that you haven't done that yet. You haven't given me any reason to believe that's not the case, or the other person for that matter. All you've done so far is say "you're wrong" and you've left it at that.

A more logical way of thinking is looking at commonalities and putting them in context. For example Chris Paul at his peak could not get to the finals in 2015 and the surrounding years. However, past his peak he finally brought a team to the finals. That's one point in favor of thinking the opposition in 2015 was stronger than in 2021. You can come up with reasons to explain this logical discrepancy—but you have to come up with reasons and you and everyone else as far as I can see haven't.

I just... what?

How does Chris Paul going to the Finals in 2021 prove that the competition in 2021 was weaker than the competition in 2015? We are talking about the competition GIANNIS faced that season, not Paul. They are in completely different conferences, with different teams going through different circumstances. And keep in mind, that was a season where a lot of people felt the East had stronger playoff teams than the West did (a belief that I actually agree). And I want to make sure I mark this part as a point of reference when you inevitably claim that I don't come up with reasons. This one reason alone kills your argument, and that required almost no effort on my part.

Oh but there's more.

There are a multitude of factors that go into how someone can manage to lead a team to the finals one season but not the other. Going by your logic, the reason the Dallas Mavericks didn't make the finals in 2007 (where they lost in the first round to the 8th seeded Warriors) but won it in 2011 (which was when they swept the defending champion Lakers, beat the incredibly talented and young OKC team with Durant/Westbrook/Harden/Ibaka and beat the Miami Heat with their new big three) was because they faced weaker competition. And don't even act like that's the only instance. I can easily come up with over a dozen more if I wanted to.

In the case of 2021, Paul experienced a combination of factors, some of which involved luck (Davis and Murray getting injured), and the rest of which was the result of Paul being on one of the best teams of his career. A lot of people tend to forget this, but the 2021 Suns were a really good team, and same with the 2022 one (obviously). It was the best coach Paul had ever played for, with a really great supporting cast that fit his style of play almost to perfection and they were a deep team as well. They ran into the team that had Giannis on it unfortunately, and they couldn't stop him (too bad the Cavaliers couldn't say the same thing about Curry in 2015).

We have just seen Curry lead a team that beat MVP and First Team All-NBA Jokic, the team with the second best record in the league and Second Team All-NBA Ja Morant, First Team All-NBA Doncic, and the team that swept KD and beat Giannis with First Team All-NBA Tatum. Giannis hasn't shown that kind of dominance.

We aren't talking about that level of dominance. That's not what this debate is about. We are talking about the runs Curry and Giannis had in 2015 and 2021 respectively. You said the one Curry had in 2015 was better. Talking about what Curry did in 2022, which is seven years later in case you can't count, doesn't prove that theory to be correct. If anything, it just continues to prove my point.

But okay. Let's talk about this season for a moment actually using context, something you never like to do. Curry beat the team with the MVP on it who was missing two of his best teammates (and managed to still get a win, something he couldn't do against the Suns last season), beat the Grizzlies who were without Ja Morant (the second team all NBA player that you didn't hesitate to mention) for the final two games of the series, avoided the best team in the NBA because they choked against the Mavericks who had no business being that far in the playoffs (the team that you mentioned had first team all NBA Doncic, but who also had arguably a worse supporting cast than LeBron did in his first stint with Cleveland), and then faced the Boston Celtics, where he was incredibly dominant and could not be stopped despite this being, without question, the best defensive team he had ever faced in the finals.

And keep in mind, before that finals series, there was nothing noteworthy or special about Curry's performance in the playoffs leading up to it. He has had far better playoff series performances in the past leading up to the 2022 Finals, which were without question the best playoff series performance he's ever had. Hell, Klay Thompson, a guy a lot of people pointed out wasn't back to his old self in the 2022 post season, led the Warriors in scoring in three of the six games in that playoff series against the Grizzlies. You say Giannis has never been that dominant? Then I strongly recommend you brush up on your NBA history, because you're in for a pretty rude awakening if you think GIannis has never been that good in the playoffs before.

You've provided a wall of text that seems to not understand anything previously stated. Let me put part of the argument simply and tell me where you disagree:

2021 Suns < 2022 Suns < 2022 Mavericks < 2022 Warriors

Do you disagree with anything there?

Next:

2021 Suns < 2015 Clippers

Do you disagree with that? Why?

Now:

2015 Warriors vs. 2022 Warriors

Which version of the team was stronger?

Same question:

2015 Cavaliers vs. 2021 Nets

[Bob8]

In case you are unaware which seems likely post hoc means after the fact. Of course I am happy with last year’s GSW roster and how they melded as a team, my point is that few considered them to have a talent advantage over several of the teams who made the play-offs at the start of the season, at the end of the regular season before the play-offs, or even in the case of the Celtics immediately before the finals.

GSW did what they have done during their run, built a cohesive team around their core and played team basketball. Perhaps I am naive, but this to me has always been to their credit rather than deserving of gripes about advantages. If they had a talent advantage it was at least partly from players no-one else wanted such as Wiggins, GPII, Bjelica and Looney, as well as Draymond Green, widely derided as Mr Triple Single. If other franchises can’t recognise unpolished diamonds that is their problem imo. GSW have also had their share of injuries over the last 8 years but have just got on with it, obviously prevailing to win a 4th title with significant contributions from players uninvolved in the previous finals appearances and titles.

You are welcome to your opinion, but mine is that the jury is out on whether a similar team culture and team system can be built on the foundation of Embiid or Doncic. Jokic is a different matter, a great offensive talent and a great team player, but whether a team dependent on him being on the floor offensively can be good enough defensively to win a title with the way current NBA basketball is played and officiated is also in question, again imo.

Not every team can pay 360 mio for their roster. I'm sure everyone would have taken Wiggins, if they could afford to pay that much tax.

Again after the fact. Sure any team which could afford him would want him after his performances in the play-offs and on the finals in particular, but GSWcwere widely derided/laughed at for taking on his contract in the first place, and Eighons was widely disrespected for most of the regular season including his all-star selection being considered by many to be unwarranted/a joke/down to the large GSW fan base.

Easier to take some risks, if you can afford to pay 360 mio.

[michaelm]

A championship is a TEAM accomplishment not an individual accomplishment. A win is a TEAM accomplishment not a individual accomplishment. Just because Curry won a championship doesn't mean he is the best player in the NBA it just means he has the best team. I hate win people conflate the two.

The Warriors had 3 all stars not including one who was coming off injury and a 6th man candidate in Poole. Of course they were title contenders and leaders in wins.

Exactly. Basketball is a team sport, I am a fan of team play, and Curry is one of the most team focused superstars in the history of the the NBA, probably the biggest reason for my fandom.

I don't consider individual player statistics in the regular season to weigh more heavily than being the best player in the play-offs and leading a team to a title, the actual object of the sport, as you appear to be arguing, however. No doubt at all Jokic was the best player in the regular season and that his team was affected by injuries, and that some players are in situations/with franchises that will never give them a chance to win because they are not free agent destinations etc. What I don't know is whether his playing style which works so well in the regular season translates to ultimate success in the play-offs and in particular whether you can have a strong enough defense including perimeter defense with him as the lynch pin of your team putting in tremendous effort on the offensive side. I have doubts about Doncic defensively deep in the play-offs as well, and Embiid has had a number of chances in the play-offs without really delivering.

What I tire of is the diminishment of Curry on the basis of him having good team-mates, a standard not applied to other top players, the opposite standard in fact often being applied ie that it is the fault of their team-mates that they are not winning, as you are pretty much doing imo. GSW were bottom dwellers who couldn't attract a decent FA for 40 years before Curry, Sure they had a change to a superior ownership group who made good decisions including in regard to coaching, but it is all built on Curry. Even with the KD version of the team which undeniably did possess overwhelming talent Curry played a team game and facilitated KD to be the most effective he has ever been or very likely will ever be imo.

I don't think I ever diminished Curry for having great teammates. In my earlier post in fact, I mentioned that Curry was arguably one of the best players in 2016 on the greatest team created. All I am saying is that championships are team accomplishments and just because you win a championship doesn't necessarily make you the best player in the league. And at the current moment I would not consider Curry a better player than Doncic, Embiid, Joker, or Giannis. That is it.

For example, LeBron has been overwhelmly the best player in the game for the majority of his career but you would find it difficult for someone to say he wasn't just because he didn't win every single championship.

LeBron is precisely the example I had in mind. He was the best player all those years when he wasn’t even trying to be MVP in the regular season including in 2016 when Curry was unanimous regular season MVP.

We know Curry can lead a team to a title and that a title winning team can be built around him as obviously happened in the most recent season. Maybe if the players you mention never do so this will mainly be due to bad luck/happenstance, maybe not, but until they do they haven’t.

As I said if you are a devotee of basketball as a team sport assessing players on the basis of their individual statistics in the regular season and your subjective assessment of the quality of their team-mates independent of the effect elite/team leading players might be having on their performance seems a strange way to go. My assessment of players is based on impact on team wins when it counts, where few match Curry . If you want to argue Embiid, Jokic and Doncic were better in the most recent regular season I am not arguing against that viewpoint, nor am I arguing about Giannis in particular at all.

in the final analysis you and I obviously assess the quality of players differently. C'est la vie.

[nikster]

No the Rockets weren't a mess in 2015; they were a mess the following year. The Warriors' highest paid player played less minutes in the entire playoffs than either Conley or Allen did in that one series. The Pelicans had a 45-37 record with a 54.9% win rate, a win rate that would be the 3rd highest of any 8th seed in either conference in the years since 2015. The Cavaliers swept their conference finals with the lineup they had regardless while the Nets lost in the round their injuries struck.

Your attempts at parallelism could use work.



The Mavericks won more games without Luka than the Warriors did without Curry.

Houston was a first round exit the years before and after. Didn't you use different seasons performance as a reason to diminish the sun's?

The Suns were a favorite around here leading into the 2022 playoffs to win a championship. The Rockets were not a favorite to win a championship in 2016. Are you too dense to see the difference? Do you need the logical inferences to be spelled out for you?

Yeah you need to spell it out for me. I don't understand why you can use future performance to judge one team but not the other

[WarriorGM]

Houston was a first round exit the years before and after. Didn't you use different seasons performance as a reason to diminish the sun's?

The Suns were a favorite around here leading into the 2022 playoffs to win a championship. The Rockets were not a favorite to win a championship in 2016. Are you too dense to see the difference? Do you need the logical inferences to be spelled out for you?

Yeah you need to spell it out for me. I don't understand why you can use future performance to judge one team but not the other

2022 Suns > 2021 Suns by multiple metrics and arguments. But those stronger 2022 Suns lost to Doncic and the Mavericks. Obvious implication is that 2021 Suns team wasn't that strong and would have probably lost to Doncic and the Mavericks too so what Giannis and the Bucks accomplished by beating the 2021 Suns was roughly the equivalent of Doncic and the Mavericks beating the 2022 Suns.

The 2015 Rockets in comparison were the stronger version of that team. The 2016 version that fell apart due to reported chemistry issues that developed doesn't say much.

[SpreeS]

ESPN TOP100 year by year

2015 Lebron Davis Durant
2016 Lebron Curry Durant
2017 Lebron Durant Kawhi
2018 Lebron Curry Harden
2019 Giannis Kawhi Lebron
2020 Lebron Davis Giannis
2021 Durant Giannis Lebron
2022 Giannis Jokic Doncic

I could only laugh at these ESPN clowns. Curry won 4 champs in 8 years and they still don't get it.

15-22

Curry 4 titles 6 finals 2 MVP's 1 FMVP's
Lebron 2 titles 5 finals 0 MVP's 2 FMVP's
Durant 2 titles 3 finals 0 MVP's 2 FMVP's
Kawhi 1 titles 1 final 0 MVP's 1 FMVP's
Giannis 1 titles 1 final 2 MVP's 1 FMVP's

[WarriorGM]

ESPN TOP100 year by year

2015 Lebron Davis Durant
2016 Lebron Curry Durant
2017 Lebron Durant Kawhi
2018 Lebron Curry Harden
2019 Giannis Kawhi Lebron
2020 Lebron Davis Giannis
2021 Durant Giannis Lebron
2022 Giannis Jokic Doncic

I could only laugh at these ESPN clowns. Curry won 4 champs in 8 years and they still don't get it.

Interesting also that Giannis has made their top three four times since 2019 while Curry didnt appear once but even in that time frame Curry has made more finals appearances. Indeed Curry has made six finals appearances since 2015 which is more than anyone else on that list. His 4 championships in that time is equal or more than any two of the others won during this period combined.

They are either extremely dumb or deliberately trying to marginalize Curry.