The Stephen Curry Thread (2015-16 Pt. 1)

[cpower]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/curryst01/shooting/2016/
Curry in the 4th quarter. 21/34 on threes (0.618%) This is how they close out teams.

[Mutnt]

Is Curry 1-4 from the free throw line? Lmao.

[The-Power]

Is Curry 1-4 from the free throw line? Lmao.

Missed his first 3 FTs. I would almost bet on it that this has never happened before in his NBA career. He keeps writing history, it seems.

[Doctor MJ]

I was thinking about this:

I think Stephen Curry might be the biggest thing to hit basketball in the RealGM era (2001 on).

I can't tell if that's a silly thought because it's not true, or because it's obviously true, I"m just sure it's a silly thought.

[RSCD3_]

I was thinking about this:

I think Stephen Curry might be the biggest thing to hit basketball in the RealGM era (2001 on).

I can't tell if that's a silly thought because it's not true, or because it's obviously true, I"m just sure it's a silly thought.

Are you basing this on his talent/huge impact or more so than that what implications his existence as an outlier has on the league

[Mutnt]

Offensively, he's easily the most impactful player in the history of the league. In that sense, I guess you can call him the 'biggest thing'... since basically ever.

The thing now is how to measure that against players who also had an insanely high offensive impact themselves (Shaq, LeBron if we stick to the post 2001 theme) but also pulled weight defensively and had more impact in other areas (rebounding, LeBron's superior playmaking and versatility etc.)?

[SideshowBob]

35/5/5 on 74% TS in 12 road games.

[Dr Spaceman]

Offensively, he's easily the most impactful player in the history of the league. In that sense, I guess you can call him the 'biggest thing'... since basically ever.

The thing now is how to measure that against players who also had an insanely high offensive impact themselves (Shaq, LeBron if we stick to the post 2001 theme) but also pulled weight defensively and had more impact in other areas (rebounding, LeBron's superior playmaking and versatility etc.)?

It's something I'm still grappling with too, although right now I kind of want to say: isn't it borne out in the team results?

Obviously we need to wait to see what happens the rest of the season, but as of right now they need to slightly outperform their win% last year to break the all-time win record, and at this point that's actually a pretty huge regression for this team. We haven't seen this level of dominance at the team level basically ever, and if this continues I don't really see how we can come to any conclusion other than Curry's impact is GOAT. Because the fact is the evidence is pointing to the fact that what he does supplants anything anyone else can do.

Obviously they could lose to the Spurs and this is all moot, but at this precise moment in time I don't think I'd consider taking anyone over Curry.

[Dr Spaceman]

I was thinking about this:

I think Stephen Curry might be the biggest thing to hit basketball in the RealGM era (2001 on).

I can't tell if that's a silly thought because it's not true, or because it's obviously true, I"m just sure it's a silly thought.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. If you're talking about level of hype surrounding a player my first thought would be toward LeBron when he was coming up as a teenager. Wasn't paying attention back then so I'll defer.

It seems like the national media has had just as much Kobe talk as Warriors talk (quite unfortunately) and so I'm not sure Curry has yet reached that level of celebrity.

I will say though on the basketball court this is as good as it gets. He captivates like no one I've seen in my lifetime and so if this is what you're referring to is wholeheartedly agree. I could ask my dog who the best player on the court is and he'd point squarely at Steph.

[SideshowBob]

51-9 now. 6 more wins in a row and they'd just have to play at 66 win pace to hit 73 (45-9).

I'll post In/Out data in a few hours.

[JimmyTD3]

I'm just gonna leave this here (it's the 2015 NBA GM survey)

2 GM's thought Curry would win the MVP this year.
0 GM's would start their franchise with Curry.
6 GM's thought Curry forces the most adjustments.

I'm sure these surveys are filled out by interns and aides, but still...as a Dubs fan, the disrespect is only making this season sweeter.

[Nitro1118]

While he's performing at levels we've probably never seen offensively, and he's a perimeter outlier almost to the effect Shaq was an interior outlier, I'm still biting my tongue when it comes to early. The next 60 games can turn his season from #1-2 greatest ecer offensive peak to merely top 5-10. The Warriors are one injury away from having the greatest season ever to merely another 65-67 win team, possibly without a championship. Curry is one injury away from his season not even qualifying for a lot of accolades and online debates, and possibly from never being the same player ever again.

So, I'm still sitting back quietly, gleefully watching in enjoyment.

[JordansBulls]

22-0 wow!!!. When do they play one of OKC or SA? If they can't beat them then no one will be favorite in any game against them.

[SideshowBob]

51-9 now. 6 more wins in a row and they'd just have to play at 66 win pace to hit 73 (45-9).

I'll post In/Out data in a few hours.

Scratch that, I'll do it in the morning after BBR updates with tonight's games.

[SideshowBob]

.

SSB,

Curry is at 37.0 PER right now. I remember Anthony Davis' PER being around 37 at this point last year, but I'm wondering whether you have this info on hand for a quick spreadsheet lookup or something. If not I can dig through the Davis thread from last year.

So through 10 games, Curry is at 37 PER, what would you say the % chance is he breaks the all-time record?

Spoiler:

Used to have a spreadsheet but I lost it when I lost my old HDD and never made a new one.

Fortunately for us, the web archive has a screenshot of 2015 AD through 10 games and actually quite a bit more as well.

He was at 36.1 through 10 games, so pretty similar to current Steph. Throughout the seasons, it's not very difficult to find similar or better 10 game PER stretches (Lebron in 2010/13/14, Wade in 09, Jordan in 89, all hit >40 if I recall correctly). None of those seasons set the record funny enough (09 Lebron and 88 Jordan), so I'm always going to lean on the side of failing to set a new record.

Still, let's consider. I don't typically count the pre-TO/STL/BLK/ORB/DRB era stats, so I'm not going to consider Wilt's 31.82 from 63 or 31.74 from 62. 1988 Jordan's 31.71 is the mark to beat. Curry would need to sustain 30.99 for the remaining 72 games. Doesn't seem all that crazy given what he was able to do last season already; his shooting from all spots on the floor hasn't deviated that much aside from inside the lane, which might not be sustainable. On the flipside, he's currently at the highest scoring rate of all time; how reasonable is it to expect defenses to smarten up a little and start aggressively trapping and cutting off the head of the PnR at the top? Do they even need to? If they do adjust, the most frequent outcome would be that the teammates start performing even better offensively, to whatever marginal degree would be expected when more attention is focused on Curry. It's possible that once we see that equilibrium, Curry's volume is simply not enough to sustain a record PER pace. But does the 10 game head start give him enough of a buffer to hit the record anyway? I can't really see him dipping below 30 anytime soon.

I don't feel comfortable putting a percentage on it, but I'd at least say I think he's got a better chance than Davis did last year.

35.4 through 21 games, and he should still be at 35 after tonight. 22 games now and he's yet to come back to earth, so I imagine he's simply made home in the stratosphere.

He needs to sustain a 30.52 PER for the remaining 60 games in order to top Jordan's mark of 31.71.

[SideshowBob]

So not only highest scoring rate of all time, but also highest TS% of all time among qualified players.

He's currently sitting at #2 all time in both of these. This is remarkable.

[Quotatious]

I was thinking about this:

I think Stephen Curry might be the biggest thing to hit basketball in the RealGM era (2001 on).

I can't tell if that's a silly thought because it's not true, or because it's obviously true, I"m just sure it's a silly thought.

I don't think it's a silly thought, because we saw LeBron come into the league after '01. His entire top 5-10 career in NBA history happened during the RealGM "era".

Curry is something else, though.

[SideshowBob]

2016 Golden State Warriors In/Out

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Season (22 G, 22-0)

+13.48 SRS, +11.1 Offense, -1.5 Defense, +12.6 Adjusted Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Klay IN (21 G, 21-0)

+14.17 SRS, +11.7 Offense, -1.5 Defense, +13.2 Adjusted Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bogut IN (16 G, 16-0)

+12.69 SRS, +12.6 Offense, +0.7 Defense, +11.9 Adjusted Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barnes IN (17 G, 17-0)

+13.45 SRS, +9.9 Offense, -3.0 Defense, +12.9 Adjusted Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Klay, Bogut, Barnes IN (10 G, 10-0)

+13.62 SRS, +12.7 Offense, -0.5 Defense, +13.2 Adjusted Net

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[SideshowBob]

I would focus on the full season set for now, given that we've only had 25% of the season. They've played 2 more road than home games so BBR's SRS is slightly lower than their actual performance, which is why they're at +13.48 instead of +13.21.

[SideshowBob]

Also note, the "Klay IN" and "Klay Barnes Bogut IN" games played numbers were mixed up.