FarBeyondDriven wrote:Iwasawitness wrote:LakerLegend wrote:
Nice reasoning
Dude, you haven’t given me a single good reason to believe anything you’ve had to say in this entire thread. Every single thing you’ve said has revolves around a mythologized version of what the 90s actually were. They weren’t some crash course where trying to get a shot off at the perimeter came at the risk of your life. They had slightly different rules… which barely would have impacted Curry. You’re acting like handchecking (which still happens today mind you) would have heavily impacted him when we’ve seen him dominate something far greater: defenses based on movement with multiple bigs that can guard the perimeter and that game planned entirely around him.
I’m not going to sugar coat this: your thread premise is laughable. If there was a HOF for bad threads, yours would be first ballot. The only thing greater than the amount of points that Curry would average in the 90s is the amount of people calling you out for being wrong. There is no objectivity to what you’ve said here. None. Just a person stuck in this mindset that the 90s were a holy grail of hard nosed physical basketball with some of the best defenses you’ll ever see, when in reality, people were standing around like they were outfielders in a baseball game. The distance between defenders and perimeter shooters was so great, you’d think they were being told everyone had covid and they needed to social distance. But somehow, the guy who can hit three pointers routinely with people so close that he can feel their breath apparently would get crushed by that kind of defense.
Get the **** out of here.
slightly different? Let's go over what has allowed Steph to dominate this era above and beyond his incredible skill as a shooter which isn't that unique given we've had great shooters throughout NBA history.
1) this era is way less physical. No hand-checking, bumping, holding, and no shot-blockers waiting in the paint
2) illegal moving screens. Half the battle for shooters back then was
a) getting on the court given their usually terrible defense and lack of position (lots of shooters before this era were like Curry, not natural point guards but too small to play SG)
b) getting separation. Because nobody plays defense, lack of defense hasn't mattered in this era. Teams are just trying to outscore other teams and will live with bad defense which wasn't the case back then. Especially in a rigged league that actually promotes offense and actively downplays defense and doesn't want its stars to be stymied. And with illegal moving screens, now shooters like Steph more easily receive the ball with open looks and/or due to bigs being forced to switch onto them they can more easily break them down, often utilizing hesis (carries) or utilize stepback/side travels to gain separation for threes. You simply didn't have that back then. Those screens would have been called.
3) without the ability to play by a completely different set of rules, Steph would have been forced to be a completely different type of player. My guess is he'd be more of a traditional point guard like Mark Price. He wouldn't shoot more than a handful of threes a game and he'd be picked on relentlessly on defense.
4) there weren't players like Draymond and therefore a system like the Warriors run wasn't a thing so spreading the floor giving Steph even more space to work with wouldn't be possible. You couldn't play a small ball 4/5 like Draymond back then because they'd get absolutely dominated due to how many elite 4/5s on the floor that would punish him
Steph happened because he came along when there were no elite centers in the NBA. This allowed Draymond to operate as a small ball center who could spread the floor since the true centers that were still around couldn't guard the perimeter. It took them out of the paint and with Klay also being a great shooter, teams simply didn't have the personnel to stop the Warriors for several seasons. But above all, illegal moving screens, carries, travels and push offs being allowed on top of that gave Steph the opportunity to be the best version of himself. It was a perfect storm that would not have been possible back in the 90s for a variety of reasons all listed.
At the end of the day it's not that he isn't good enough. It's because he'd be constrained first by the coaching and second by the rules. I feel like you people believe you could drop Steph into a 90s game and he'd easily replicate his production if not even more. It's laughable. He'd literally take the inbounding pass and start dribbling up the court and immediately be called for a carry since today's players can't even dribble at a standstill without carrying. I'm not being hyperbolic. So he'd have to be way more careful with his dribble thus eliminating so much of his "handle" that allows him to do all the exciting things you see him do. He'd be faced up and pressured the whole way up the court and be forced to give up the ball a lot. He wouldn't be using illegal screens so there'd be no switching onto slow bigs. He'd have to do his damage against guards and wings. And do that, without being able to do outlandish stepback/side threes which let's be honest, would be called for travels, and he couldn't carry so those wings/guards defending him, with hands all over him, holding him as he's trying to fight through contact, bumping him off his spot and a shot-blocking center waiting in the paint preventing him from driving, would all prevent the majority of what you presently see him doing on the court. THIS is what people mean when they say today's players wouldn't necessarily translate to prior eras whereas it'd be so much easier for past players to translate to today. It's just a much easier league now with all the rules bent to help offensive players. It's not because we're "oldheads" or "nostalgia". We're legit talking about completely different sports.
This is like trying to compare eras across other sports and it's just as laughable. Today's goalies with their massive pads, sticks, helmets and advancement in training and nutrition, couldn't be dropped into a game from decades past when they had tiny pads and no helmets and be expected to be better than goalies from those eras. Just like an Olympic sprinter couldn't replicate their times running on the same surface, with the same sneakers and no starting block like Jesse Owens had to deal with. Or Phelps swimming in the same depths in the same pools used in 1980 being expected to beat Spitz. Sure, maybe Phelps and Usain Bolt would still be faster. But not nearly by as much as people believe because rules have changed so dramatically they're almost completely different events just like the NBA is a completely different sport.
Here is the thing: If Steph's success is so era-dependent, then why have none of his peers been able to come even close to matching his production as a shooter?
He led the league in total 3-pointers eight times in a span of 12 seasons, one of which he lost to injury. So it might as well be 11. His worst percentage during those seasons was 38.0, which is only a couple of points lower than Reggie Miller's and Ray Allen's career percentage. He won a couple of scoring titles in that span. He also has the best free throw percentage in history, another measure of shooting ability that is totally independent of rules or playing styles.
In short, he is the Babe Ruth of shooters. If you don't want to compare across eras, recognize that nobody has ever dominated his contemporaries to this extent. Allen, for comparison, led the league in 3s three times, and Miller a paltry twice in 36 total seasons between them.
The "not even close" argument is usually overblown. Not here. In an era where teams have basically jettisoned extra big men and collectively gone small -- i.e. more skilled players who have been added specifically to provide more 3-point firepower -- and players are encouraged to shoot in unprecedented volume, he has still been head and shoulders above everybody else.
There's never been anybody like him.
