OhayoKD wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:OhayoKD wrote:The 11 mavs faced weak competition? They went 8-2 vs 55+ win teams before beating a heat team that was looking like the bulls for the first three rounds. I don't think "weak competitoin" works as a knock on the 11 mavs. They probably faced better competition than the warriors.
I think the problem with curry's 2017 is that the previous two years we saw great defenses completely tank his offense, the following year they were 3-2 down to a team similar to the spurs team that they didn't end up having to deal with, and the year after that curry wasn't playing like an mvp in the regular season and played poorly enough in the 2nd round that being on a normal contender probably gets him bounced. Ultimately the goal is to win a championship, not to win it by a million points, so currys' theoretical value as a "scalable" piece doesn't necceasrily make up for his demonstrated vulnerability when the deck isn't stacked.
If the warriors offense isn't nuked the previous two years by a defense anchored by a 30 year old wing+tristan thompson then maybe degree of difficulty doesn't matter. But as it is, when the degree of difficulty has increased cusrry hasn't been as good in the postseason and arguably those more difficult situations are more relevant to a player's capacity to win titles than the freak scenario that was 2017 where different players probably could have won if not as smoothly in curry's place.
Curry's competition here have all shown they can go from game 1 to 82 and from the first round to the finals without a signifcant drop-off in performance vs teams that aren't completely outclassed. And you can't really credit curry as the *reason, the warriors were outclassing everyone because they were not able to do that the previous two years.
Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '09 or '10 Lakers? I don't.
Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '12 or '13 Heat? I don't.
Do you think the '09 or '10 Lakers or '12 or '13 Heat would win titles today? I don't.
Re: "previous two years completely tank his offense". First off that's not true and something I've been trying to get people to understand recently.
People seem to have gotten the idea that they can look at raw ORtg numbers for teams in the playoffs and if those numbers are lower than the regular season, then they were "shut down", but that's not a reasonable way to look at things.
An essential part of judging a playoff offense that has deep playoff runs is to compare that team's ORtg to other team's ORtg against the same opponent. That alone doesn't tell the full story of course, but if you're not doing this, you haven't actually scratched the surface.
Leaving aside the Durant years when he played, this is the Warrior playoff track record in the 8 years of Kerr's time there:
2015 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2016 - 2 exception to bring up in a second.
2019 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2022 - 1 exception to bring up in a second.
What are those 3 exceptions:
in 2016, the Pistons had a higher ORtg against the Cavs than the Warriors did. However, the Pistons lost every game of the series, and in the regular season had a below average ORtg this year, just like they now have for the past 11 years (hell of a streak), so I don't think anyone should be wanting to argue that the Pistons were more impressive as a playoff offense than the Warriors.
In 2016, the Spurs had a higher ORtg against the Thunder than the Warriors did. Those Spurs were a 67-15 juggernaut that rightly should be seen as one of 4 champion level teams that, for example, would have destroyed the 2011 Mavs, so they are a serious threat...but the Spurs only have the higher ORtg because of a great Game 1. If you look at the ORtgs deeper in the series, it's the Warriors easily.
In 2022, the Nets had a higher ORtg against the Celtics than the Warriors did. Those Nets despite losing every game deserve offensive respect but it should be remembered that they played a Celtic team without Robert Williams. The Warriors actually had a better ORtg in the Williams-less minutes than the Nets did, and Curry had a higher ORtg than KD did in their respective Celtic series even ignoring the higher degree of difficulty of Williams.
So literally, the 3 exceptions we're talking about, not really really damning exceptions. By and large these past 8 years, when Curry's been playing in the playoffs, we've seen him lead offenses that are more impressive than any other contemporary offense could be expected to achieve in the same circumstances.
Now to be clear, none of that means that Curry necessarily has the edge over Magic or Bird, only that if you think that you've seen the Warrior offense fall apart again and again in the playoffs, you're just plain wrong. There have been struggles along the way and I don't mean to imply otherwise - the 2016 Cavs beat them fair and square first and foremost - but the narrative of the Warrior offense being actually-not-good in the playoffs is something that you only see if you don't look closely enough.
Why don't you think they could tho? The 10 lakers were taken to 6 by a weaker version of the okc side the mavs demolished. Miami were took a 60 win team to the cleaners before the mavs beat them. Don't you think this might be name-bias on your end? Idk if they beat modern teams, but they faced a historically difficult set of teams if you're just thinking relative to era and were pretty dominant.
As for the warriors. The warriors,
dropped the most offensively against the cavs those two years. Not even the hawks, the raptors, or the bulls were as affected. I didn't bring up bird, specfically because he's got a worse track record of this(his team did way worse than jordan's bulls or magic's lakers vs the pistons and even reggie's pacers arguably held up better), but if you're comparing him to shaq/hakeem/kareem in their best years, i think that's significant.
It's also probably worth noting that them being "the greatest team of all time" isn't neccesarily even clear cut statistically in the playoffs or the regular seasons even though they effectivelly had three superstars, elite role players, and unprecedented spacing with their biggest threats(17 spurs/18 rockets) both being defanged due to injury with the warriors traling. Think the 72 bulls and 71 bucks both have comparable full strength ratings and in the playoffs paticularly, the 01 lakers and the 91 bulls compare well.
Also probably should account for draymond who posted better plus-minus stuff than curry and who the warriors have looked bad without, even with curry. I just don't think steph's 2017 statistical stuff neccesarily translate in more reasonable conditions.
First thing I'll say: I'm not going to say you're crazy for disagreeing with me about the Mavs. These are all champion teams worthy of respect, and in fact during the '10-11 season I was saying repeatedly that the Mavs when healthy had an extremely impressive regular season record. I didn't pick them in the series against the Lakers where they won in a sweep that left us gobsmacked, but I was saying ahead of time that Dallas could win, which most didn't believe.
Yet, I never argued that those Mavs were better than the Laker & Heat champs that surrounded them. Why? Hmm, well, some salient points:
1. The '10-11 Mavs played the Lakers on the downswing and the Heat on the upswing. I don't think you'll find anyone that believes the teams the Mavs beat were the best versions of those teams. Doesn't mean that '10-11 Mavs couldn't be even better, but we shouldn't forget this.
2. In general, those other teams seemed more dominant at their peak. Now, I don't have the healthy vs injured breakdown of the '10-11 Mavs handy and I know they look stronger when you do that, but with the Mavs it's certainly not like we're talking about them wiping the floor with everyone they met. The last could be said of the other teams in question so it's not the best critique here, but those they were teams that every other team in the league including the Mavs looked up at them as the favorite, and the Mavs breaking through in one post-season where there these teams had stumbles they didn't have at their best, still leaves with that same impression.
What do I mean about "stumbles" here?
3. Consider the 3-point shooting in the Mavs vs Lakers series:
Mavs 12.25 3PG on 46.2% shooting
Lakers 3.75 3PG on 19.7% shooting
By contrast, in the regular season:
Mavs 7.9 3PG on 36.5% shooting
Lakers 6.4 3PG on 35.2% shooting
I would suggest that the Mavs 3-point advantage in the series is not a sustainable thing, and that had each team shot more normally, the Lakers may well have won the series.
That might seem far-fetched given that the series was a sweep, but it wasn't a sweep in the sense that one team dominated the whole way through.
Game 1 - Dallas wins by 2 points. Give either team their RS 3P% and the Lakers win.
Game 2 - Dallas wins by 12 points...and yet still, give the Lakers their RS 3P% and they win the game.
Game 3 - Dallas wins by 6 points. Give both teams their RS 3P% and the Lakers win.
Game 4 - Blowout, but that's classic Shaq-Kobe Era Lakers seemingly on the plane to Tahiti once they think they can't come back.
4. What was going on with LeBron in the 2011 Finals?
This gets into the realm of psychology, so here in particular, I don't want to claim I have the objectively correct answer, but my takeaway from the 2010 Boston series as well as this one is that young LeBron could get rattled when he wasn't sure what they right move to make was.
Basically, if you hit LeBron with defensive tactics he hadn't seen before, he didn't just get stymied by X%, there was a chance you could make him hesitant about everything he did out there.
To me this is something that many younger superstars who bear a lot of decision making weight struggle with against particularly strong, innovative opponents in the playoffs...and then they reach a point I tend to call "bulletproof" where all you can get from them is the X%. They may not be able to have enough success against you to win the game, but they know what play to make to up their odds as much as possible, and they make that play decisively.
This to say: I think the LeBron and the Heat adapted as a result of the knockout blow the Mavs landed, and they weren't going to get hit by that punch again.
On to other points:
- "dropped the most". Glad you say that's what you're thinking about explicitly, because it's precisely what I'm saying not to focus on. Not saying I'd utterly ignore it, but the idea of knocking a team's offense when they do better against all their opponents than anyone else and win the series where all the others lost, just seems pretty strange to me.
Now yes, we are talking about Greatest Peaks and I do understand a perspective of "I'm not saying it's bad, just saying that compared to this other all-timer, it's not as impressive". More than anything else, I just don't want you or others to mistake this for "being shut down" or some other hyperbolic statement. If you're leading the most effective playoff offense of your time, you're having great offensive success in the playoffs.
- Keep in mind also though as we compare Curry to guys from earlier eras, that when we talk about Curry doing this, we're talking about him doing this at the end of a skills-arms race as we know it. As in, that race will continue and some day 2022 will be decades old, at which time more recent players will be in the Curry role and Curry will be the guy with the obsolete (to some degree) team.
And what that means is that when you're looking at players from earlier eras, any success you're seeing them have, you're seeing them have against defenses that were primitive compared to today, and would get utterly annihilated by a team that shot 3's like a modern team, let alone the team that defined this new era of advance.
So when you bring up teams from the '70s, while we're free to disagree, I'll tell you flat out that the only way any of those teams have a prayer against any of Curry's contending teams is if they play the game without the 3-point shot.
- Account for Draymond. Absolutely! Incredible player. Curry's not out there alone - though I think it's important to understand that's always the case for any of these players, and they typically have some amazingly good teammates as well.
On Draymond having the stronger +/-. I don't want to brush this aside. I'll flat out say that I've considered whether Green is the better player than Curry on the back of what we saw early on in that data. However:
a. When you say that Curry's team struggled without Green, it's hard for me not to roll my eyes. You see '19-20 with Green and no Curry. It wasn't a struggle, it was a trainwreck. That alone doesn't tell the whole story here, but to the extent anyone was seriously looking to argue Green > Curry, to me that felt like they shipped sailed in the 2020s.
b. One can still argue that Green was the overall more impactful player in the early years, but I'd say the larger evidence goes against that. Curry nearly led the league in raw +/- in '13-14 when Green was still a bench guy after all.
