2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

[eminence]

bragging early is always dangerous, if curry has a bad finals and warriors lose the durant fans will be ruthless in return about curry needing durant as a closer and all the old fmvp stuff

that's true although 2015 + KD's lack of success with the nets will probably be the straightforward counter for them

i think durant fans would try to diminish 2015 cause cleveland injuries and iguodala winning fmvp (the former being more of a valid point than the llater although not by much)

and "counter" 2022 durant seasom with curry missing the playoffs in 2021 and mentioning nets issues througg the season (kyrie vaccine, harden drama) to explain the neys struggles

and the old mighty durant shoe thingh

either way is always risky to talk big before the bbq is done

But if you brag it up and it measures up you make a bigger profit

[falcolombardi]

that's true although 2015 + KD's lack of success with the nets will probably be the straightforward counter for them

i think durant fans would try to diminish 2015 cause cleveland injuries and iguodala winning fmvp (the former being more of a valid point than the llater although not by much)

and "counter" 2022 durant seasom with curry missing the playoffs in 2021 and mentioning nets issues througg the season (kyrie vaccine, harden drama) to explain the neys struggles

and the old mighty durant shoe thingh

either way is always risky to talk big before the bbq is done

But if you brag it up and it measures up you make a bigger profit

for sure

in a odd way bragging early is more brave than braggin after as you are taking a risk by doing so lol

[Texas Chuck]

Yes, there’s absolutely nothing precluding Curry from being more impactful while executing fine motor basketball action worse.

Of course not.

But there is also the very real possibility that the reason the team is so much better this year is due to the others and not just Steph Curry. And I think most of the evidence points in that direction.

Otherwise we have reduced this all down to best player on best team is all that matters and then why are we even here?

[falcolombardi]

Yes, there’s absolutely nothing precluding Curry from being more impactful while executing fine motor basketball action worse.

Of course not.

But there is also the very real possibility that the reason the team is so much better this year is due to the others and not just Steph Curry. And I think most of the evidence points in that direction.

Otherwise we have reduced this all down to best player on best team is all that matters and then why are we even here?

a lot of discussion om modern basketball essentially centers on a bunch of dichotomies based on people preference: plus-minus vs eye test, off ball vs on ball, longevity vs peak, individual vs team

and the latter is very common

from the old "jordan made pippen into who he was" to the recent "lebron ball hogging is why teammates struggle when he doesnt play" or other ones like "curry is the most inportant player in warriors defense cause he lets them play a defense oriented roster"

or my favorite "this team being good without their star playing is cause of how unselfishly he plays so his teammates learn to play without him"

"but this other player i dont like having teammates play well without him is because he is selfish and low impact"

one way or the other, praise or criticism, a lot of the time basketball is reduced to a single star player (or duo or trio of them) even other player achievemenrs of strugfles must all be credites to the team star (it depends on how much the player is liked)

lots of people like the idea of reducing rrsults to player A beating player B and will adjust every other context so they can explain every result as one star player beating the other one

[parsnips33]

Since I talk about Steph too much

I will take this opportunity to highlight Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney who started out the year (in the eyes of many) as bad salary and potential trade filler and are ending the year as two linchpins of one of the best defense in basketball. I was high on Looney before this year, but his improvements as a rebounder and his becoming an effective finisher/passer out of the PNR have really impressed me

And I'll probably tell my grandkids about the time Wiggins locked up the GOAT Luka in the WCF

[jalengreen]

for sure

in a odd way bragging early is more brave than braggin after as you are taking a risk by doing so lol

it's always lame to only talk trash after you win. front-runner behavior. part of why i love draymond (off the court). he'll talk no matter what lol

[itsxtray]

I struggle with this one, because clearly his numbers are down and he hasn't looked as good as he did even just last season. But the Warriors are still a great team (especially at full strength) and his relative importance to the team doesn't look much different to me than it did at his height, even with the emergence of Poole as a secondary ball handler and Wiggins soaking up some offensive possessions.

Maybe it's as simple as 2016 Steph could've made this another 70 win team rather than what they are

I'll chime in with a few thoughts:

1. I don't think Kerr's system was ever about getting Curry the best opportunity for volume & efficiency, and I think the times where he has maxed those out tend to represent times where the Warriors just said "go for it Steph". I think people think that Steph is dependent on the system when what's closer to the truth is that it's for everyone else on the team more than it is for his own production.

I disagree massively with this. Imma use 15-16 as the main example because that was when Steph played at his absolute best. Taking the ball somewhat out of his hands (he still had it alot, he was truly a 50/50 hybrid that season) was done for the express purpose OF maximizing Steph. The most efficient jumpshots are catch & shoot jumpshots and that holds true even for Steph and with warriors fans crowing for him to play more on ball. Running all those spilt cuts, pin downs, dho's etc... allowed Steph to shoot open/wide open catch and shoot jumpers more often which helped maximize his efficiency.

Steve Kerr recognized that Steph could "playmake" off his movement with Draymond/Iggy making reads so giving them ballhandling duties wasn't about taking away from Steph but using the attention he drew to maximize the team but like I said Steph still had the ball a ton and his PnR with Draymond while teams were playing drop let him walk into open 3's as well, truly great insight from Kerr.

Finally, the times he maxed out volume and efficiency wasn't when they just said "go for it Steph" it was 15-16 with the warriors playing beautiful team basketball built around Steph's strengths: Get the best shooter ever more open catch & shoot jumpers, destroy teams dropping with pull up 3's and when they blitz, Draymond kills them in the 4 on 3. The truth is that the "system" isn't more for everyone else on the team, it maximizes everyone including Steph. Now, the warriors can play this way b/c of Steph's skills and Draymonds passing/defense from the 4/5 positions which is the true magic but yeah i had to say my piece cause i very much disagree.

[falcolombardi]

the olayuwon vs robinson thread combined with this year boston vs nets series makes me wonder how often people take the wrong conclusion about somethingh "working" by looking at a star individual numbers

the spurs in 95 faced olajuwon with single coverage by robinson and actually were the best team at slowing the rockets down offensively, but because hakeem feasted individually robinson receives the criticism even though it worked as far as slowing down houston (no other team got close)

in 2022 the huge amount of attention durant (and irving to a lesser degree) got allowed nets role players to be hyper efficient and nets had by far the best offense of any team against boston

in contrast the (admiteddly injured) nets in 2021 had a weak offense againsg bucks, but durant who was guardes a bit more individually had monster scoring making people criticize bucks defense and approach

[Doctor MJ]

I struggle with this one, because clearly his numbers are down and he hasn't looked as good as he did even just last season. But the Warriors are still a great team (especially at full strength) and his relative importance to the team doesn't look much different to me than it did at his height, even with the emergence of Poole as a secondary ball handler and Wiggins soaking up some offensive possessions.

Maybe it's as simple as 2016 Steph could've made this another 70 win team rather than what they are

I'll chime in with a few thoughts:

1. I don't think Kerr's system was ever about getting Curry the best opportunity for volume & efficiency, and I think the times where he has maxed those out tend to represent times where the Warriors just said "go for it Steph". I think people think that Steph is dependent on the system when what's closer to the truth is that it's for everyone else on the team more than it is for his own production.

I disagree massively with this. Imma use 15-16 as the main example because that was when Steph played at his absolute best. Taking the ball somewhat out of his hands (he still had it alot, he was truly a 50/50 hybrid that season) was done for the express purpose OF maximizing Steph. The most efficient jumpshots are catch & shoot jumpshots and that holds true even for Steph and with warriors fans crowing for him to play more on ball. Running all those spilt cuts, pin downs, dho's etc... allowed Steph to shoot open/wide open catch and shoot jumpers more often which helped maximize his efficiency.

Steve Kerr recognized that Steph could "playmake" off his movement with Draymond/Iggy making reads so giving them ballhandling duties wasn't about taking away from Steph but using the attention he drew to maximize the team but like I said Steph still had the ball a ton and his PnR with Draymond while teams were playing drop let him walk into open 3's as well, truly great insight from Kerr.

Finally, the times he maxed out volume and efficiency wasn't when they just said "go for it Steph" it was 15-16 with the warriors playing beautiful team basketball built around Steph's strengths: Get the best shooter ever more open catch & shoot jumpers, destroy teams dropping with pull up 3's and when they blitz, Draymond kills them in the 4 on 3. The truth is that the "system" isn't more for everyone else on the team, it maximizes everyone including Steph. Now, the warriors can play this way b/c of Steph's skills and Draymonds passing/defense from the 4/5 positions which is the true magic but yeah i had to say my piece cause i very much disagree.

Seems like you're saying that you disagree with me because Curry had his best year's under Kerr's system, but to me this doesn't contradict what I said.

Let's note that in '13-14 scored more than he did in '14-15, did so with TS better than 60%, and had a massive +/- all while once again having a season from 3 better than anyone else in the history of the game. The idea then that the team had to switch coaches in the name of getting more out of Curry just doesn't fit with how Golden State or anyone else would have thought about things at the time.

On the other hand:

1. Klay Thompson was Jerry West's guy.
2. Jerry West thought Mark Jackson wasn't making use of Klay to anywhere near his potential and though a motion offense would work a lot better to get the most out of not one but two shooters.
3. This was at the heart of the feud between the two that resulted in Jackson not wanting West around the team.
4. Klay had a massive improvement the next year, significantly increasing his volume while also improving his efficiency from mediocre to quite good.

So, my understanding is that it really was about helping Klay more than helping Steph, and the data in '14-15 absolutely backs that up.

Now to be clear, when I said "go for it Steph", I wasn't suggesting a Mark Jackson-style offense. What I meant is that within Kerr's years, there are still times where the offense is more about developing that "strength in numbers" and other times it's more about just riding Steph.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I'll chime in with a few thoughts:

1. I don't think Kerr's system was ever about getting Curry the best opportunity for volume & efficiency, and I think the times where he has maxed those out tend to represent times where the Warriors just said "go for it Steph". I think people think that Steph is dependent on the system when what's closer to the truth is that it's for everyone else on the team more than it is for his own production.

I disagree massively with this. Imma use 15-16 as the main example because that was when Steph played at his absolute best. Taking the ball somewhat out of his hands (he still had it alot, he was truly a 50/50 hybrid that season) was done for the express purpose OF maximizing Steph. The most efficient jumpshots are catch & shoot jumpshots and that holds true even for Steph and with warriors fans crowing for him to play more on ball. Running all those spilt cuts, pin downs, dho's etc... allowed Steph to shoot open/wide open catch and shoot jumpers more often which helped maximize his efficiency.

Steve Kerr recognized that Steph could "playmake" off his movement with Draymond/Iggy making reads so giving them ballhandling duties wasn't about taking away from Steph but using the attention he drew to maximize the team but like I said Steph still had the ball a ton and his PnR with Draymond while teams were playing drop let him walk into open 3's as well, truly great insight from Kerr.

Finally, the times he maxed out volume and efficiency wasn't when they just said "go for it Steph" it was 15-16 with the warriors playing beautiful team basketball built around Steph's strengths: Get the best shooter ever more open catch & shoot jumpers, destroy teams dropping with pull up 3's and when they blitz, Draymond kills them in the 4 on 3. The truth is that the "system" isn't more for everyone else on the team, it maximizes everyone including Steph. Now, the warriors can play this way b/c of Steph's skills and Draymonds passing/defense from the 4/5 positions which is the true magic but yeah i had to say my piece cause i very much disagree.

Seems like you're saying that you disagree with me because Curry had his best year's under Kerr's system, but to me this doesn't contradict what I said.

Let's note that in '13-14 scored more than he did in '14-15, did so with TS better than 60%, and had a massive +/- all while once again having a season from 3 better than anyone else in the history of the game. The idea then that the team had to switch coaches in the name of getting more out of Curry just doesn't fit with how Golden State or anyone else would have thought about things at the time.

On the other hand:

1. Klay Thompson was Jerry West's guy.
2. Jerry West thought Mark Jackson wasn't making use of Klay to anywhere near his potential and though a motion offense would work a lot better to get the most out of not one but two shooters.
3. This was at the heart of the feud between the two that resulted in Jackson not wanting West around the team.
4. Klay had a massive improvement the next year, significantly increasing his volume while also improving his efficiency from mediocre to quite good.

So, my understanding is that it really was about helping Klay more than helping Steph, and the data in '14-15 absolutely backs that up.

Now to be clear, when I said "go for it Steph", I wasn't suggesting a Mark Jackson-style offense. What I meant is that within Kerr's years, there are still times where the offense is more about developing that "strength in numbers" and other times it's more about just riding Steph.

I thought it was because mark jackson was insane and all 200 in the organization hated him because he thought players playing bad were possessed by devils and he needed holy water to heal injuries

(To be clear this wasn’t me joking or anything I think all of that was confirmed word for word and I’m being 100% serious)

I do think the steph and dray pick and roll bread and butter is underused nowadays, but steph iso ball would be a huge underutilization of his talents lol

[Doctor MJ]

I disagree massively with this. Imma use 15-16 as the main example because that was when Steph played at his absolute best. Taking the ball somewhat out of his hands (he still had it alot, he was truly a 50/50 hybrid that season) was done for the express purpose OF maximizing Steph. The most efficient jumpshots are catch & shoot jumpshots and that holds true even for Steph and with warriors fans crowing for him to play more on ball. Running all those spilt cuts, pin downs, dho's etc... allowed Steph to shoot open/wide open catch and shoot jumpers more often which helped maximize his efficiency.

Steve Kerr recognized that Steph could "playmake" off his movement with Draymond/Iggy making reads so giving them ballhandling duties wasn't about taking away from Steph but using the attention he drew to maximize the team but like I said Steph still had the ball a ton and his PnR with Draymond while teams were playing drop let him walk into open 3's as well, truly great insight from Kerr.

Finally, the times he maxed out volume and efficiency wasn't when they just said "go for it Steph" it was 15-16 with the warriors playing beautiful team basketball built around Steph's strengths: Get the best shooter ever more open catch & shoot jumpers, destroy teams dropping with pull up 3's and when they blitz, Draymond kills them in the 4 on 3. The truth is that the "system" isn't more for everyone else on the team, it maximizes everyone including Steph. Now, the warriors can play this way b/c of Steph's skills and Draymonds passing/defense from the 4/5 positions which is the true magic but yeah i had to say my piece cause i very much disagree.

Seems like you're saying that you disagree with me because Curry had his best year's under Kerr's system, but to me this doesn't contradict what I said.

Let's note that in '13-14 scored more than he did in '14-15, did so with TS better than 60%, and had a massive +/- all while once again having a season from 3 better than anyone else in the history of the game. The idea then that the team had to switch coaches in the name of getting more out of Curry just doesn't fit with how Golden State or anyone else would have thought about things at the time.

On the other hand:

1. Klay Thompson was Jerry West's guy.
2. Jerry West thought Mark Jackson wasn't making use of Klay to anywhere near his potential and though a motion offense would work a lot better to get the most out of not one but two shooters.
3. This was at the heart of the feud between the two that resulted in Jackson not wanting West around the team.
4. Klay had a massive improvement the next year, significantly increasing his volume while also improving his efficiency from mediocre to quite good.

So, my understanding is that it really was about helping Klay more than helping Steph, and the data in '14-15 absolutely backs that up.

Now to be clear, when I said "go for it Steph", I wasn't suggesting a Mark Jackson-style offense. What I meant is that within Kerr's years, there are still times where the offense is more about developing that "strength in numbers" and other times it's more about just riding Steph.

I thought it was because mark jackson was insane and all 200 in the organization hated him because he thought players playing bad were possessed by devils and he needed holy water to heal injuries

(To be clear this wasn’t me joking or anything I think all of that was confirmed word for word and I’m being 100% serious)

I do think the steph and dray pick and roll bread and butter is underused nowadays, but steph iso ball would be a huge underutilization of his talents lol

I think Jackson's insanity is key to why he actually got fired, but in terms of what the basketball issues were, this was at the roots.

Further, I do think it very likely that Jackson's paranoia went into overdrive because of the actual threats to his basketball expertise.

[itsxtray]

I'll chime in with a few thoughts:

1. I don't think Kerr's system was ever about getting Curry the best opportunity for volume & efficiency, and I think the times where he has maxed those out tend to represent times where the Warriors just said "go for it Steph". I think people think that Steph is dependent on the system when what's closer to the truth is that it's for everyone else on the team more than it is for his own production.

I disagree massively with this. Imma use 15-16 as the main example because that was when Steph played at his absolute best. Taking the ball somewhat out of his hands (he still had it alot, he was truly a 50/50 hybrid that season) was done for the express purpose OF maximizing Steph. The most efficient jumpshots are catch & shoot jumpshots and that holds true even for Steph and with warriors fans crowing for him to play more on ball. Running all those spilt cuts, pin downs, dho's etc... allowed Steph to shoot open/wide open catch and shoot jumpers more often which helped maximize his efficiency.

Steve Kerr recognized that Steph could "playmake" off his movement with Draymond/Iggy making reads so giving them ballhandling duties wasn't about taking away from Steph but using the attention he drew to maximize the team but like I said Steph still had the ball a ton and his PnR with Draymond while teams were playing drop let him walk into open 3's as well, truly great insight from Kerr.

Finally, the times he maxed out volume and efficiency wasn't when they just said "go for it Steph" it was 15-16 with the warriors playing beautiful team basketball built around Steph's strengths: Get the best shooter ever more open catch & shoot jumpers, destroy teams dropping with pull up 3's and when they blitz, Draymond kills them in the 4 on 3. The truth is that the "system" isn't more for everyone else on the team, it maximizes everyone including Steph. Now, the warriors can play this way b/c of Steph's skills and Draymonds passing/defense from the 4/5 positions which is the true magic but yeah i had to say my piece cause i very much disagree.

Seems like you're saying that you disagree with me because Curry had his best year's under Kerr's system, but to me this doesn't contradict what I said.

Let's note that in '13-14 scored more than he did in '14-15, did so with TS better than 60%, and had a massive +/- all while once again having a season from 3 better than anyone else in the history of the game. The idea then that the team had to switch coaches in the name of getting more out of Curry just doesn't fit with how Golden State or anyone else would have thought about things at the time.

On the other hand:

1. Klay Thompson was Jerry West's guy.
2. Jerry West thought Mark Jackson wasn't making use of Klay to anywhere near his potential and though a motion offense would work a lot better to get the most out of not one but two shooters.
3. This was at the heart of the feud between the two that resulted in Jackson not wanting West around the team.
4. Klay had a massive improvement the next year, significantly increasing his volume while also improving his efficiency from mediocre to quite good.

So, my understanding is that it really was about helping Klay more than helping Steph, and the data in '14-15 absolutely backs that up.

Now to be clear, when I said "go for it Steph", I wasn't suggesting a Mark Jackson-style offense. What I meant is that within Kerr's years, there are still times where the offense is more about developing that "strength in numbers" and other times it's more about just riding Steph.

Well they didn't switch coaches because they needed to get more out of Steph, from my understanding Mark Jackson was like a christian extremist and just in general a toxic ****:

Read on Twitter

14-15 is when they made the switch but they hadn't truly perfected their style yet, all you have to do is look at Draymond literally doubling his assist numbers in 15-16.

Even if you're right about them changing to help Klay what does it matter? The actual results are what my main point is, the change maximized everyone on the team including Steph especially when they perfected their system in 15-16:
Per 100 fga 13-14 thru 15-16
Klay: 9.7, 12, 11.8
Steph: 11.4, 12.2, 14.4

As you can see Steph's attempts wen't up more than Klays during that period and Steph's 2.2 fga jump in 15-16 is nearly as large as Klay's 2.3 jump in 14-15. Kerr designed a brilliant system around Steph's strengths that when perfected maximized his entire roster, Steph most of all.

Your last point i somewhat agree with but they still "ride" Steph within the confines of their offense. Last season after the warriors actually decided to start winning they did put the ball in his hands in the halfcourt more often which led to more Step/Dray PnR's & Dho's which is still part of their offense because of the 4on3 reads Dray makes out of it or whether to keep after faking the Dho, so the other players are still learning where they need to be when the warriors play that way and it's not like they abandoned their motion principles completely when they did that.

[dontcalltimeout]

the olayuwon vs robinson thread combined with this year boston vs nets series makes me wonder how often people take the wrong conclusion about somethingh "working" by looking at a star individual numbers

the spurs in 95 faced olajuwon with single coverage by robinson and actually were the best team at slowing the rockets down offensively, but because hakeem feasted individually robinson receives the criticism even though it worked as far as slowing down houston (no other team got close)

in 2022 the huge amount of attention durant (and irving to a lesser degree) got allowed nets role players to be hyper efficient and nets had by far the best offense of any team against boston

in contrast the (admiteddly injured) nets in 2021 had a weak offense againsg bucks, but durant who was guardes a bit more individually had monster scoring making people criticize bucks defense and approach

This is something we should always keep in mind when discussing the highly specialized contests in playoff series. Each team is trying to do specific things on offense and defense that may look different from what teams do with less time to prepare. This is why it's important to look at the aggregate outcome too, such as: was Boston successful at shutting down the Nets offense?

Anyway, I've never been a big KD guy, but I think he got a little too much criticism that series. Nevertheless, there has to be some noise in those role player shooting numbers too.

[falcolombardi]

with some days to cool heads after the conferences ended

how do you feel now about the upcoming finals? differently that the week before predictions wise?

[parsnips33]

Really interested to see Wiggins vs Tatum matchup. Doncic and Tatum are probably 2 of the best 3 isolation wings (KD being the third) right now, but their games are so different. Gonna be a totally different challenge than last series

[Colbinii]

Really interested to see Wiggins vs Tatum matchup. Doncic and Tatum are probably 2 of the best 3 isolation wings (KD being the third) right now, but their games are so different. Gonna be a totally different challenge than last series

Tatum is pretty far down the pecking order in terms of Isolation Scoring in the league. What has allowed him to be a better offensively player this season compared to previous years are two things:

1) His ability to move off-ball and re-position. As more and more teams are incorporating wrinkles of the motion offense into different sets, Tatum has become one of the best wings at re-positioning himself offensively after making a pass.

2) Better playmaker. While still a far-cry from the best wings in this regard, his reads are much crisper within offensive sets, especially out of his drives.

Both wings matchups are interesting with Wiggins vs Tatum and Klay vs Brown. I'm really excited for the Draymond/Robert Williams shenanigans.

[Clyde Frazier]

If payton is reasonably healthy he could be a big factor. I think I'd be surprised if he is tho. Can't wait for game 1!

[Colbinii]

with some days to cool heads after the conferences ended

how do you feel now about the upcoming finals? differently that the week before predictions wise?

Warriors in 6.

I expect game 1 to be telling. The Warriors are a completely different animal offensively than Miami. We saw Dallas have a Deer in the headlights look during game 1 against Golden State after they were able to slow down Phoenix. The offense is incredibly difficult to stop and the Warriors are constantly prying to find the weakness of a defense and exploit it which makes the Warriors offense extremely resilient over a 7-game series.

If Boston look lost or confused in game 1, I have hard time seeing them having enough time to make the required adjustments to win the series.

[70sFan]

the olayuwon vs robinson thread combined with this year boston vs nets series makes me wonder how often people take the wrong conclusion about somethingh "working" by looking at a star individual numbers

the spurs in 95 faced olajuwon with single coverage by robinson and actually were the best team at slowing the rockets down offensively, but because hakeem feasted individually robinson receives the criticism even though it worked as far as slowing down houston (no other team got close)

I think we should look from both points of view:

- what Spurs did was a right gameplan, as Houston had harder time scoring against them than in any other series,
- Robinson definitely didn't deliver in that series, if he did enough to just slow down Hakeem to his usual production the Spurs would have likely won the series.

I think more teams playing that way could actually do a better job than the Spurs, because it is a fact that Hakeem destroyed Robinson on offense.

Another thing is that Spurs were the best defensive team Rockets faced, so it's expected from them to slow them down more than any other team. If we look at relative ratings, it doesn't look nearly as good:

vs Jazz: +14.9 rORtg
vs Suns: +5.5 rORtg
vs Spurs: +5.2 rORtg
vs Magic: +9.3 rORtg

So overall, it's still definitely more impressive than any other team, but it's expected. Nobody should expect Suns or Magic to do a better job than Spurs. The way Rockets dominated Jazz defense is certainly impressive though.

[Doctor MJ]

I disagree massively with this. Imma use 15-16 as the main example because that was when Steph played at his absolute best. Taking the ball somewhat out of his hands (he still had it alot, he was truly a 50/50 hybrid that season) was done for the express purpose OF maximizing Steph. The most efficient jumpshots are catch & shoot jumpshots and that holds true even for Steph and with warriors fans crowing for him to play more on ball. Running all those spilt cuts, pin downs, dho's etc... allowed Steph to shoot open/wide open catch and shoot jumpers more often which helped maximize his efficiency.

Steve Kerr recognized that Steph could "playmake" off his movement with Draymond/Iggy making reads so giving them ballhandling duties wasn't about taking away from Steph but using the attention he drew to maximize the team but like I said Steph still had the ball a ton and his PnR with Draymond while teams were playing drop let him walk into open 3's as well, truly great insight from Kerr.

Finally, the times he maxed out volume and efficiency wasn't when they just said "go for it Steph" it was 15-16 with the warriors playing beautiful team basketball built around Steph's strengths: Get the best shooter ever more open catch & shoot jumpers, destroy teams dropping with pull up 3's and when they blitz, Draymond kills them in the 4 on 3. The truth is that the "system" isn't more for everyone else on the team, it maximizes everyone including Steph. Now, the warriors can play this way b/c of Steph's skills and Draymonds passing/defense from the 4/5 positions which is the true magic but yeah i had to say my piece cause i very much disagree.

Seems like you're saying that you disagree with me because Curry had his best year's under Kerr's system, but to me this doesn't contradict what I said.

Let's note that in '13-14 scored more than he did in '14-15, did so with TS better than 60%, and had a massive +/- all while once again having a season from 3 better than anyone else in the history of the game. The idea then that the team had to switch coaches in the name of getting more out of Curry just doesn't fit with how Golden State or anyone else would have thought about things at the time.

On the other hand:

1. Klay Thompson was Jerry West's guy.
2. Jerry West thought Mark Jackson wasn't making use of Klay to anywhere near his potential and though a motion offense would work a lot better to get the most out of not one but two shooters.
3. This was at the heart of the feud between the two that resulted in Jackson not wanting West around the team.
4. Klay had a massive improvement the next year, significantly increasing his volume while also improving his efficiency from mediocre to quite good.

So, my understanding is that it really was about helping Klay more than helping Steph, and the data in '14-15 absolutely backs that up.

Now to be clear, when I said "go for it Steph", I wasn't suggesting a Mark Jackson-style offense. What I meant is that within Kerr's years, there are still times where the offense is more about developing that "strength in numbers" and other times it's more about just riding Steph.

Well they didn't switch coaches because they needed to get more out of Steph, from my understanding Mark Jackson was like a christian extremist and just in general a toxic ****:

Read on Twitter

14-15 is when they made the switch but they hadn't truly perfected their style yet, all you have to do is look at Draymond literally doubling his assist numbers in 15-16.

Even if you're right about them changing to help Klay what does it matter? The actual results are what my main point is, the change maximized everyone on the team including Steph especially when they perfected their system in 15-16:
Per 100 fga 13-14 thru 15-16
Klay: 9.7, 12, 11.8
Steph: 11.4, 12.2, 14.4

As you can see Steph's attempts wen't up more than Klays during that period and Steph's 2.2 fga jump in 15-16 is nearly as large as Klay's 2.3 jump in 14-15. Kerr designed a brilliant system around Steph's strengths that when perfected maximized his entire roster, Steph most of all.

Your last point i somewhat agree with but they still "ride" Steph within the confines of their offense. Last season after the warriors actually decided to start winning they did put the ball in his hands in the halfcourt more often which led to more Step/Dray PnR's & Dho's which is still part of their offense because of the 4on3 reads Dray makes out of it or whether to keep after faking the Dho, so the other players are still learning where they need to be when the warriors play that way and it's not like they abandoned their motion principles completely when they did that.

On the point I bolded:

It mattered because it was what I was looking to say in the snippet that you originally came in and said you "disagreed massively" with. So if it's true, you're massively disagreeing with something true.

But look, that's just how we got to this point, not what we want to express going forward. I'll let you have the last word here.