RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #24 (Stephen Curry)

[freethedevil]

Given that none of these knoeldegable posters have managed to apply this knowledge to address the claim in question, this is actually an appeal to consensus ontop of an appeal to tradition. The evidence provided for jordan's signficant superiority is even weaker than the evidence provdied for 14 curry over peak nash. Therefore any consistent standard would have the latter as a 'more' ridiculous opinion.

Yeah, a shame that only you are smart enough to give us convincing arguments. Or maybe you don't listen well enough... I don't know, let's decide.

Strawman?

I said the argument hasn't been made(true), you stretching that to "only I can argue" is bafflingly disingenuous.

Remidner: you are the one calling opinions ridiculous and arguing that opinoins 'shouldn't be considered or argued seriously'. This is not consistent with 'why are you close minded'.

An open mind accepts that long held opinions are not inherently better than novel opnions and that stances should be judged on argumentation, not the proportion of the board that holds an opinion.

[Bad Gatorade]

Otoh, given the nature of playoff defenses i think its perfectly fair to say its a valid concern that curry might struggle more versus the types of defenses teams throw in the playoffs more, typically the ones gokd at adjusting. Not even from his mumbers but just an impact standpoint, i wouldnt be suprised if the crazy curry and dray p and r wasnt as effective pre ddurant, or if the off ball breakdowns, which are gonna still occur cuz curry is curry, will decrease.

Without participating in the project (or writing anything on here in a very long time), I actually tried to take a look at this.

My (incredibly rough) methodology involves looking at on court offensive ratings in both the regular season and the playoffs (per minute played) for Curry, and then weighting this vs the expectation set by Curry's opponents.

From 2015-2019 -

* Curry played 3442 minutes in the playoffs, and obviously, far more than this in the regular season.
* The On-court ORTG for the Warriors with Curry during the playoffs was 115.86 vs a 107.66 average defence (+8.2).
* In the regular season, this number was 119.99 vs a 108.40 average defence.
* Opposing team defences being only 0.74 PP100 tighter than the regular season expectation is actually quite low.

The obvious major caveat to this methodology is the presence of injuries/lineup changes, but without doing something as drastic as, say, assigning individual regular season player value (e.g. DRAPM) vs playoff minutes in every playoff series, this is probably close to as good as we'll get. And of course, we could nitpick certain things (e.g. Durant not playing the entirety of the 2019 playoffs) but then this ignores things such as Durant also missing regular season time in 2017/2018, and other opposing players missing time vs the Warriors. So, for the sake of simplicity, I'll call this even.

I haven't calculated this on a wider scale yet, but a -3.39 drop seems quite large, and also somewhat jibes with the fact that Curry has one of the larger relative TS% drops on record (from memory, a game-weighted glance took Curry from approximately +10.1 TS% to +7.3 TS% relative to the opponent) and in general, has fewer assists and points/slightly more turnovers.

So, whilst Curry still has tremendous value in the playoffs, he does appear somewhat more human in a playoff context, and the relative team efficiency follows. In fact, the opposing player for the #23 slot (CP3) actually had a 5 year span (2013-2017) underneath this methodology with a relative playoff on court ORTG of +8.73 (i.e. higher than the Warriors), albeit in clearly fewer games.

There have also been criticisms levelled at Curry for not having tremendous on court playoff ORTGs without Durant, and it kind of holds true - in 2015, his playoff ORTGs in each series were +7.9 (against a fairly poor Pelicans defence), -0.4, +3.6, +1.1, in 2016 he had +3.8 and +4.2 in his final two series (i.e. the ones where he played every game), and he had +9.3 (against a league average defence that lost Jusuf Nurkic right before the playoffs) and +3.0. Note that in 2015, the Warriors were also the #2 ranked offence in the league, and #1 in 2016. Outside of 2017, which was a simply stunning playoff run, there is a fairly strong correlation between the relative ORTG with Curry on court in the playoffs and the opponent's relative DRTG - 0.79 across 13 series. In other words, outside of 2017, the Warriors obliterated weaker defensive teams, but looked far more mortal than their regular season expectation against the stronger defensive teams with Curry on the court.

Without actually undertaking such a detailed analysis for every star player we're considering, there definitely appears to be a notable amount of evidence that Curry is clearly more human in the playoffs, and even more so against the toughest defences. And this doesn't mean that he's a playoff scrub at all - he's still fantastic, but it does mean that the individuals that aren't voting Curry in at this point, or second guessing his impact based on the playoffs... just might be onto something. The degree as to which somebody weights the playoffs vs the regular season, or how much they feel that the Curry drop-off is real, is up to them.

This is really just food for thought though, because Curry's playoffs always seem to become a talking point.

Just from memory, other stars have evidence that points to higher playoff resilience - for example, Wade's relative TS% reached +6 in his healthy playoff years from 2005-2011 (i.e. ignoring 2007) after being at +3-3.5% in the regular season, Nash/Magic had stupendous postseason offences, Paul has a clear scoring uptick (IIRC, he's at something like +6 TS% on higher volume from 2008-2017 himself), Kobe's got some great offences and increases his TS% from 2008-2010, etc.

FWIW, I think that #24 is a fine place for Curry, and I think that he could even be higher, or lower, and I wouldn't have any real complaints either way. I think Curry is an amazing player... but the arguments for Curry (grandiose impact, changing the game, team culture) are strong, and the arguments against Curry (durability, worse in playoffs, longevity) have merit too. Do we have to be so dismissive of the other school of thought and plummet into an online pool of rage?

[70sFan]

Strawman?

I said the argument hasn't been made(true), you stretching that to "only I can argue" is bafflingly disingenuous.

The argument has been made many times. I won't copy and paste the same thing every time the same discussion comes again.

[Whopper_Sr]

Delightfully surprised to see CP3 in at #23 even though that's still ~10 spots lower than where I have him. Durant over Paul/Nash/Curry is still a head scratcher but there are many people whose evaluation criteria favor the type of player Durant is (individual offensive dynamo) so it's somewhat understandable. A top 25 placement is reasonable, just not over the PG trio.

Naturally, I'm going with Nash and Curry again for my next 2 picks. Personally, I have them as the 17th and 18th greatest players ever so I could be convinced to vote for Curry over Nash instead. No one else comes close to the level of offensive impact and production these two provided or have provided so far. Might be the easiest picks so far.

I'm down to Wade and Stockton for my 3rd pick. I'm leaning Wade but open to discuss these two. For now, I will pencil him in.

1. Steve Nash
2. Stephen Curry
3. Dwyane Wade

[Firebird1]

Curry was 3-1 against LeBron in the Finals. Look at Curry man! So inspirational! Well deserving of the #24 spot.

[freethedevil]

Otoh, given the nature of playoff defenses i think its perfectly fair to say its a valid concern that curry might struggle more versus the types of defenses teams throw in the playoffs more, typically the ones gokd at adjusting. Not even from his mumbers but just an impact standpoint, i wouldnt be suprised if the crazy curry and dray p and r wasnt as effective pre ddurant, or if the off ball breakdowns, which are gonna still occur cuz curry is curry, will decrease.

Without participating in the project (or writing anything on here in a very long time), I actually tried to take a look at this.

My (incredibly rough) methodology involves looking at on court offensive ratings in both the regular season and the playoffs (per minute played) for Curry, and then weighting this vs the expectation set by Curry's opponents.

From 2015-2019 -

* Curry played 3442 minutes in the playoffs, and obviously, far more than this in the regular season.
* The On-court ORTG for the Warriors with Curry during the playoffs was 115.86 vs a 107.66 average defence (+8.2).
* In the regular season, this number was 119.99 vs a 108.40 average defence.
* Opposing team defences being only 0.74 PP100 tighter than the regular season expectation is actually quite low.

The obvious major caveat to this methodology is the presence of injuries/lineup changes, but without doing something as drastic as, say, assigning individual regular season player value (e.g. DRAPM) vs playoff minutes in every playoff series, this is probably close to as good as we'll get. And of course, we could nitpick certain things (e.g. Durant not playing the entirety of the 2019 playoffs) but then this ignores things such as Durant also missing regular season time in 2017/2018, and other opposing players missing time vs the Warriors. So, for the sake of simplicity, I'll call this even.

I haven't calculated this on a wider scale yet, but a -3.39 drop seems quite large, and also somewhat jibes with the fact that Curry has one of the larger relative TS% drops on record (from memory, a game-weighted glance took Curry from approximately +10.1 TS% to +7.3 TS% relative to the opponent) and in general, has fewer assists and points/slightly more turnovers.

So, whilst Curry still has tremendous value in the playoffs, he does appear somewhat more human in a playoff context, and the relative team efficiency follows. In fact, the opposing player for the #23 slot (CP3) actually had a 5 year span (2013-2017) underneath this methodology with a relative playoff on court ORTG of +8.73 (i.e. higher than the Warriors), albeit in clearly fewer games.

There have also been criticisms levelled at Curry for not having tremendous on court playoff ORTGs without Durant, and it kind of holds true - in 2015, his playoff ORTGs in each series were +7.9 (against a fairly poor Pelicans defence), -0.4, +3.6, +1.1, in 2016 he had +3.8 and +4.2 in his final two series (i.e. the ones where he played every game), and he had +9.3 (against a league average defence that lost Jusuf Nurkic right before the playoffs) and +3.0. Note that in 2015, the Warriors were also the #2 ranked offence in the league, and #1 in 2016. Outside of 2017, which was a simply stunning playoff run, there is a fairly strong correlation between the relative ORTG with Curry on court in the playoffs and the opponent's relative DRTG - 0.79 across 13 series. In other words, outside of 2017, the Warriors obliterated weaker defensive teams, but looked far more mortal than their regular season expectation against the stronger defensive teams with Curry on the court.

Without actually undertaking such a detailed analysis for every star player we're considering, there definitely appears to be a notable amount of evidence that Curry is clearly more human in the playoffs, and even more so against the toughest defences. And this doesn't mean that he's a playoff scrub at all - he's still fantastic, but it does mean that the individuals that aren't voting Curry in at this point, or second guessing his impact based on the playoffs... just might be onto something. The degree as to which somebody weights the playoffs vs the regular season, or how much they feel that the Curry drop-off is real, is up to them.

This is really just food for thought though, because Curry's playoffs always seem to become a talking point.

Just from memory, other stars have evidence that points to higher playoff resilience - for example, Wade's relative TS% reached +6 in his healthy playoff years from 2005-2011 (i.e. ignoring 2007) after being at +3-3.5% in the regular season, Nash/Magic had stupendous postseason offences, Paul has a clear scoring uptick (IIRC, he's at something like +6 TS% on higher volume from 2008-2017 himself), Kobe's got some great offences and increases his TS% from 2008-2010, etc.

FWIW, I think that #24 is a fine place for Curry, and I think that he could even be higher, or lower, and I wouldn't have any real complaints either way. I think Curry is an amazing player... but the arguments for Curry (grandiose impact, changing the game, team culture) are strong, and the arguments against Curry (durability, worse in playoffs, longevity) have merit too. Do we have to be so dismissive of the other school of thought and plummet into an online pool of rage?

What happens to this analysis if we focus on healthy curry postseasons:
_>2013
->2014
-> 2015
-> 2017
-> 2019?

Because going off three year aupm, 13-15 is a pretty nice +5.6 and that's hard carried by like the one year we'd consider prime curry in 15.

[ccameron]

1. If you're voting for Paul over Curry by longevity, you're weighing longevity abnormally compared to folks traditionally have.

2. If you're voting for Paul over Curry by longevity, you're specifically considering a longevity beyond what NBA decision makers focus on.

3. Do expect that as the years go by for this vote to look stranger and stranger to people, because Curry's legacy is written in cement where Paul's a rolling stone gathering no moss.

Can you explain this? Because clearly Paul has more prime seasons than Curry. Are you saying Paul's longevity doesn't count because he has played for different teams his whole career whereas Curry has played for one team? To me that seems weighing longevity abnormally. If Paul was drafted by the warriors, maybe he stays with them his whole career. I'm not putting zero blame on him for not working out on different teams, but just like the perception of Jimmy Butler might have been a rolling stone gathering no moss, that perception quickly changed when he started playing for a solid franchise. Hornets, Clippers, Rockets, OKC have had dysfunction apart from Paul.

[Joao Saraiva]

Votes
Steph Curry
John Stockton
D. Wade

Curry is a game changer, and a defining player for this generation. His 3 point shot off the dribble, his gravity in the perimeter, his superb handles make him the most impacful player left for me.

Sure he is flawed on defense, but what he brings to the table on offense is absolutely elite, and he's proved he really deserves a spot among the best PGs ever.

Fit wise it's easy to play with Curry. I can't think of a roster who wouldn't improve with him on it. That is something special.

I also like his intangibles in a sense that he doesn't show a lot of ego towards his teammates.

[Bad Gatorade]

Lots of talking

What happens to this analysis if we focus on healthy curry postseasons:
_>2013
->2014
-> 2015
-> 2017
-> 2019?

Because going off three year aupm, 13-15 is a pretty nice +5.6 and that's hard carried by like the one year we'd consider prime curry in 15.

I already spoke a decent chunk about 2015/2017/2019 when I ran that, but aside from 2017, that entire 5 year stretch follows the same general trend, i.e. Warriors feasting on "easier" opponents and then ranging from above average to good against the stronger opponents (I'm talking between +1 and +5 relative ORTG). The only outliers to this trend really happened in 2017, which was ridiculously good (IIRC, the four series were something like +12, +18, +18, +24).

2013 and 2014 actually look good by Curry's on court rating -
+3.75 vs Nuggets
+ 7.54 vs Spurs
+9.56 vs Clippers

A bit surprised by his 2013 numbers, but I'm not surprised that his 2014 team numbers are great - that Warriors team was a lot stronger than most people recall. I would note, however, that Curry's box score does somewhat drop off in these years too (e.g. BPM goes from 5.4 --> 4.7 and 7.4 --> 4.4).

The 2013 and 2014 on-court numbers do somewhat buck the trend noted from 2015-2019, and outside of 2017, actually look more impressive than the other numbers, but the box score trend of Curry dropping off remains. Trends, random variation, and so on. I'll leave that interpretation up to the rest of you.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Otoh, given the nature of playoff defenses i think its perfectly fair to say its a valid concern that curry might struggle more versus the types of defenses teams throw in the playoffs more, typically the ones gokd at adjusting. Not even from his mumbers but just an impact standpoint, i wouldnt be suprised if the crazy curry and dray p and r wasnt as effective pre ddurant, or if the off ball breakdowns, which are gonna still occur cuz curry is curry, will decrease.

Without participating in the project (or writing anything on here in a very long time), I actually tried to take a look at this.

My (incredibly rough) methodology involves looking at on court offensive ratings in both the regular season and the playoffs (per minute played) for Curry, and then weighting this vs the expectation set by Curry's opponents.

From 2015-2019 -

* Curry played 3442 minutes in the playoffs, and obviously, far more than this in the regular season.
* The On-court ORTG for the Warriors with Curry during the playoffs was 115.86 vs a 107.66 average defence (+8.2).
* In the regular season, this number was 119.99 vs a 108.40 average defence.
* Opposing team defences being only 0.74 PP100 tighter than the regular season expectation is actually quite low.

The obvious major caveat to this methodology is the presence of injuries/lineup changes, but without doing something as drastic as, say, assigning individual regular season player value (e.g. DRAPM) vs playoff minutes in every playoff series, this is probably close to as good as we'll get. And of course, we could nitpick certain things (e.g. Durant not playing the entirety of the 2019 playoffs) but then this ignores things such as Durant also missing regular season time in 2017/2018, and other opposing players missing time vs the Warriors. So, for the sake of simplicity, I'll call this even.

I haven't calculated this on a wider scale yet, but a -3.39 drop seems quite large, and also somewhat jibes with the fact that Curry has one of the larger relative TS% drops on record (from memory, a game-weighted glance took Curry from approximately +10.1 TS% to +7.3 TS% relative to the opponent) and in general, has fewer assists and points/slightly more turnovers.

So, whilst Curry still has tremendous value in the playoffs, he does appear somewhat more human in a playoff context, and the relative team efficiency follows. In fact, the opposing player for the #23 slot (CP3) actually had a 5 year span (2013-2017) underneath this methodology with a relative playoff on court ORTG of +8.73 (i.e. higher than the Warriors), albeit in clearly fewer games.

There have also been criticisms levelled at Curry for not having tremendous on court playoff ORTGs without Durant, and it kind of holds true - in 2015, his playoff ORTGs in each series were +7.9 (against a fairly poor Pelicans defence), -0.4, +3.6, +1.1, in 2016 he had +3.8 and +4.2 in his final two series (i.e. the ones where he played every game), and he had +9.3 (against a league average defence that lost Jusuf Nurkic right before the playoffs) and +3.0. Note that in 2015, the Warriors were also the #2 ranked offence in the league, and #1 in 2016. Outside of 2017, which was a simply stunning playoff run, there is a fairly strong correlation between the relative ORTG with Curry on court in the playoffs and the opponent's relative DRTG - 0.79 across 13 series. In other words, outside of 2017, the Warriors obliterated weaker defensive teams, but looked far more mortal than their regular season expectation against the stronger defensive teams with Curry on the court.

Without actually undertaking such a detailed analysis for every star player we're considering, there definitely appears to be a notable amount of evidence that Curry is clearly more human in the playoffs, and even more so against the toughest defences. And this doesn't mean that he's a playoff scrub at all - he's still fantastic, but it does mean that the individuals that aren't voting Curry in at this point, or second guessing his impact based on the playoffs... just might be onto something. The degree as to which somebody weights the playoffs vs the regular season, or how much they feel that the Curry drop-off is real, is up to them.

This is really just food for thought though, because Curry's playoffs always seem to become a talking point.

Just from memory, other stars have evidence that points to higher playoff resilience - for example, Wade's relative TS% reached +6 in his healthy playoff years from 2005-2011 (i.e. ignoring 2007) after being at +3-3.5% in the regular season, Nash/Magic had stupendous postseason offences, Paul has a clear scoring uptick (IIRC, he's at something like +6 TS% on higher volume from 2008-2017 himself), Kobe's got some great offences and increases his TS% from 2008-2010, etc.

FWIW, I think that #24 is a fine place for Curry, and I think that he could even be higher, or lower, and I wouldn't have any real complaints either way. I think Curry is an amazing player... but the arguments for Curry (grandiose impact, changing the game, team culture) are strong, and the arguments against Curry (durability, worse in playoffs, longevity) have merit too. Do we have to be so dismissive of the other school of thought and plummet into an online pool of rage?

I mean idm wherever he goes lol but im assuming the rage part isnt at me

So i appreciate the effort but i also feel the 2015 and 2016 postseasons are more indicitive. That better defenses tend to do better vs the warriors is a bit in line with the idea that

Since currys impact is mostly derived from
Pick and roll action
Off ball movement to create breakdowns defensively
Set plays to get open shots

And defenses are more creative targetting the pick and roll, vs mostly autopilot in the RS, and analyze more plays and off ball movement to avoid breakdowns over a series.

My main point wasnt that currry wasnt their most important offensive player or anything, but that it shifts a bit to durant. Whereas in the RS its 70-30 curry durant, because of the nature of the playoffs its probably more 60-40, maybe even favoring durant in some matchups

Otoh I always like seperating player from system and i dont neccessarily think curry is a system player like some others do, I think the warriors sustem got overhyped post durant actually, and sometimes they overrely on off ball curry far too much. It gets some free buckets and its unique to him but they should really use it more as something to show a different look when theyre instead using it as option A sometimes, even when defenses are reading it well some games

I think currys off ball game, while GOAT, gets really overstated sometiems as if 5 guys are constantly on him rather than him creating constant breakdowns that are less plentiful in the playoffs. Conversly, i think his on ball game gets understated, hes genuinly one of the best ever in pick and roll situations, and if you give him a short roll big he might be the best in those situations.

I think there are players higher than curry id rather start my team with curry with but im not sure id rank curry above those guys if that makes sense, but i would add that in some of those series, like the houstan series, they did kind of hard counter what the warriors try to do offensively and kerr hasnt shown hes very good at adjusting (laughs in box and one).

[MyUniBroDavis]

Lots of talking

What happens to this analysis if we focus on healthy curry postseasons:
_>2013
->2014
-> 2015
-> 2017
-> 2019?

Because going off three year aupm, 13-15 is a pretty nice +5.6 and that's hard carried by like the one year we'd consider prime curry in 15.

I already spoke a decent chunk about 2015/2017/2019 when I ran that, but aside from 2017, that entire 5 year stretch follows the same general trend, i.e. Warriors feasting on "easier" opponents and then ranging from above average to good against the stronger opponents (I'm talking between +1 and +5 relative ORTG). The only outliers to this trend really happened in 2017, which was ridiculously good (IIRC, the four series were something like +12, +18, +18, +24).

2013 and 2014 actually look good by Curry's on court rating -
+3.75 vs Nuggets
+ 7.54 vs Spurs
+9.56 vs Clippers

A bit surprised by his 2013 numbers, but I'm not surprised that his 2014 team numbers are great - that Warriors team was a lot stronger than most people recall. I would note, however, that Curry's box score does somewhat drop off in these years too (e.g. BPM goes from 5.4 --> 4.7 and 7.4 --> 4.4).

The 2013 and 2014 on-court numbers do somewhat buck the trend noted from 2015-2019, and outside of 2017, actually look more impressive than the other numbers, but the box score trend of Curry dropping off remains. Trends, random variation, and so on. I'll leave that interpretation up to the rest of you.

I mean the warriors offense wasnt really the same at all in 2013 and 2014 though, in that it was actually a different offensive system

I dont doubt that curry could have incredible top tier offensive impact in the playoffs, weve seen him have insane ones, but just that in alot of the ways people equate his impact to his unique off ball lrowess vs his on ball prowess that is legitiamtely perfect for a pg from a skillset perspective, hed have to focus more on the latter and not the former since his off ball prowess isnt as effective if teammates prepare for it in a series

[MyUniBroDavis]

Otoh, given the nature of playoff defenses i think its perfectly fair to say its a valid concern that curry might struggle more versus the types of defenses teams throw in the playoffs more, typically the ones gokd at adjusting. Not even from his mumbers but just an impact standpoint, i wouldnt be suprised if the crazy curry and dray p and r wasnt as effective pre ddurant, or if the off ball breakdowns, which are gonna still occur cuz curry is curry, will decrease.

Without participating in the project (or writing anything on here in a very long time), I actually tried to take a look at this.

My (incredibly rough) methodology involves looking at on court offensive ratings in both the regular season and the playoffs (per minute played) for Curry, and then weighting this vs the expectation set by Curry's opponents.

From 2015-2019 -

* Curry played 3442 minutes in the playoffs, and obviously, far more than this in the regular season.
* The On-court ORTG for the Warriors with Curry during the playoffs was 115.86 vs a 107.66 average defence (+8.2).
* In the regular season, this number was 119.99 vs a 108.40 average defence.
* Opposing team defences being only 0.74 PP100 tighter than the regular season expectation is actually quite low.

The obvious major caveat to this methodology is the presence of injuries/lineup changes, but without doing something as drastic as, say, assigning individual regular season player value (e.g. DRAPM) vs playoff minutes in every playoff series, this is probably close to as good as we'll get. And of course, we could nitpick certain things (e.g. Durant not playing the entirety of the 2019 playoffs) but then this ignores things such as Durant also missing regular season time in 2017/2018, and other opposing players missing time vs the Warriors. So, for the sake of simplicity, I'll call this even.

I haven't calculated this on a wider scale yet, but a -3.39 drop seems quite large, and also somewhat jibes with the fact that Curry has one of the larger relative TS% drops on record (from memory, a game-weighted glance took Curry from approximately +10.1 TS% to +7.3 TS% relative to the opponent) and in general, has fewer assists and points/slightly more turnovers.

So, whilst Curry still has tremendous value in the playoffs, he does appear somewhat more human in a playoff context, and the relative team efficiency follows. In fact, the opposing player for the #23 slot (CP3) actually had a 5 year span (2013-2017) underneath this methodology with a relative playoff on court ORTG of +8.73 (i.e. higher than the Warriors), albeit in clearly fewer games.

There have also been criticisms levelled at Curry for not having tremendous on court playoff ORTGs without Durant, and it kind of holds true - in 2015, his playoff ORTGs in each series were +7.9 (against a fairly poor Pelicans defence), -0.4, +3.6, +1.1, in 2016 he had +3.8 and +4.2 in his final two series (i.e. the ones where he played every game), and he had +9.3 (against a league average defence that lost Jusuf Nurkic right before the playoffs) and +3.0. Note that in 2015, the Warriors were also the #2 ranked offence in the league, and #1 in 2016. Outside of 2017, which was a simply stunning playoff run, there is a fairly strong correlation between the relative ORTG with Curry on court in the playoffs and the opponent's relative DRTG - 0.79 across 13 series. In other words, outside of 2017, the Warriors obliterated weaker defensive teams, but looked far more mortal than their regular season expectation against the stronger defensive teams with Curry on the court.

Without actually undertaking such a detailed analysis for every star player we're considering, there definitely appears to be a notable amount of evidence that Curry is clearly more human in the playoffs, and even more so against the toughest defences. And this doesn't mean that he's a playoff scrub at all - he's still fantastic, but it does mean that the individuals that aren't voting Curry in at this point, or second guessing his impact based on the playoffs... just might be onto something. The degree as to which somebody weights the playoffs vs the regular season, or how much they feel that the Curry drop-off is real, is up to them.

This is really just food for thought though, because Curry's playoffs always seem to become a talking point.

Just from memory, other stars have evidence that points to higher playoff resilience - for example, Wade's relative TS% reached +6 in his healthy playoff years from 2005-2011 (i.e. ignoring 2007) after being at +3-3.5% in the regular season, Nash/Magic had stupendous postseason offences, Paul has a clear scoring uptick (IIRC, he's at something like +6 TS% on higher volume from 2008-2017 himself), Kobe's got some great offences and increases his TS% from 2008-2010, etc.

FWIW, I think that #24 is a fine place for Curry, and I think that he could even be higher, or lower, and I wouldn't have any real complaints either way. I think Curry is an amazing player... but the arguments for Curry (grandiose impact, changing the game, team culture) are strong, and the arguments against Curry (durability, worse in playoffs, longevity) have merit too. Do we have to be so dismissive of the other school of thought and plummet into an online pool of rage?

What happens to this analysis if we focus on healthy curry postseasons:
_>2013
->2014
-> 2015
-> 2017
-> 2019?

Because going off three year aupm, 13-15 is a pretty nice +5.6 and that's hard carried by like the one year we'd consider prime curry in 15.

Considering how aupm is calcualted shouldnt it be hard carried by 13 and 14 instead lol

[Bad Gatorade]

I mean idm wherever he goes lol but im assuming the rage part isnt at me

You would be correct

Agreed on essentially all of your points, by the way.

[Hal14]

1. Elgin Baylor
2. Bob Pettit
3. John Havlicek

Baylor gets the slight edge over Pettit because Baylor was faster, better passer and better ball handler. And in terms of impact, Baylor was Dr. J before Dr. J. Baylor was Connie Hawkins before Connie Hawkins. Jordan modeled his game after Dr. J, as did Dominique Wilkins. Kobe and LeBron modeled their game after Jordan. Baylor was a pioneer. He paved the way for all of the explosive, big, strong, athletic wings to come later.

And speaking of impact, you could also make the argument that Baylor is the one who invented the euro-step:

Watch on YouTube

Also, Pettit's crowning achievement was his 50 point, 19 rebound game to led the Hawks to the win in game 6 over the Celtics to clinch the 1958 NBA championship. However, Russell only played 20 minutes that game because he had a severely sprained ankle suffered in game 3 of that series. Baylor meanwhile, scored 61 points and pulled down 22 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a win over the Celtics in game 5 of the 1962 NBA finals, so Baylor put up better numbers and did it against a healthy Russell who played all 48 minutes of that game. Baylor also played all 48 minutes that game. Jerry West? He had 26 points, 4 rebounds and 0 assists.

Baylor is the best all-around player left on the board IMO when you take into account his scoring, rebounding, passing, defense, ball handling and ability to score/defend both inside and outside.

Baylor and Pettit are both very close and it's definitely debatable which was the greater player. I think both have a case to be top 20 of all time. Scary to think how good they would have been if they played in the modern era with the advantage of 50 years of advances in basketball skills, more favorable rule changes, less days off between games, better equipment, better facilities, better weight training, better nutrition, better sports science, etc.

Baylor's teammate Jerry West is the no. 13 player on this list. And while I do have West ranked ahead of Baylor all-time, it is very close, so if West is no. 13 then Baylor could definitely be the no. 21 guy, considering that when they were teammates, Baylor was often times the better player. Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn was quoted saying that Baylor was the best player he covered - not West. West is quoted saying that Baylor was better than him. Both Baylor and West made first team all NBA 10 times. Baylor was a better rebounder than Wes, a bigger, stronger more powerful player who could score and defend just as well inside as he could outside.

Hondo is in my no. 3 spot here. 8 titles (8-0 in the NBA finals), Celtics all time leading scorer, outstanding defensive player, strong clutch player.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I mean idm wherever he goes lol but im assuming the rage part isnt at me

You would be correct

Agreed on essentially all of your points, by the way.

I kinda do wish i took part in the discussion for the project more, would be really interested in kobes ranking in particular since thats probably the biggest discrepency between my list and realgms (which isnt to say his placement at 12 isnt justified i totally get the arguments for it).

[DQuinn1575]

RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project Tier List

Tier 1: LeBron James, Michael Jordan

Tier 1.5: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Tier 2: Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, Wilt Chamberlain

Tier 3: Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett

Tier 4: Kobe Bryant, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson

Tier 4.5: Dirk Nowitzki

Tier 5: Karl Malone, David Robinson, Julius Erving, George Mikan, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, (Steph Curry)

Well done - I think Tier 5 should/might include a few more, but that's pretty much how the board has gone; of course most everyone has a guy that might be off a tier up or down. Like I would put Dirk with everyone else in Tier 5, and could see a legitimate case for any of them to be the best of that group, and would also put West in there as well.

[Jordan Syndrome]

RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project Tier List

Tier 1: LeBron James, Michael Jordan

Tier 1.5: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Tier 2: Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, Wilt Chamberlain

Tier 3: Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett

Tier 4: Kobe Bryant, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson

Tier 4.5: Dirk Nowitzki

Tier 5: Karl Malone, David Robinson, Julius Erving, George Mikan, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, (Steph Curry)

Well done - I think Tier 5 should/might include a few more, but that's pretty much how the board has gone; of course most everyone has a guy that might be off a tier up or down. Like I would put Dirk with everyone else in Tier 5, and could see a legitimate case for any of them to be the best of that group, and would also put West in there as well.

This is based upon voting.

[DQuinn1575]

RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project Tier List

Tier 1: LeBron James, Michael Jordan

Tier 1.5: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Tier 2: Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, Wilt Chamberlain

Tier 3: Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett

Tier 4: Kobe Bryant, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson

Tier 4.5: Dirk Nowitzki

Tier 5: Karl Malone, David Robinson, Julius Erving, George Mikan, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, (Steph Curry)

Well done - I think Tier 5 should/might include a few more, but that's pretty much how the board has gone; of course most everyone has a guy that might be off a tier up or down. Like I would put Dirk with everyone else in Tier 5, and could see a legitimate case for any of them to be the best of that group, and would also put West in there as well.

This is based upon voting.

yep, that's why I said well done, and said "that's pretty much how the board has gone"
Probably should have inserted a better transition than "of course"; I got your meaning, but didnt explain myself well enough.
Thanks for doing the summary, it is helpful.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Bob Pettit - been voting him for a while
2. Stephen Curry
3. Dwyane Wade

I'm voting for #1 options like Curry or Wade over secondary guys like Stockton. Nash I feel benefitted from the system a lot and his prime longevity wasn't really better than Curry and Wade.

Curry over Wade is based on slightly more longevity, otherwise I slightly prefer Wade's peak due to his game translating to the playoffs well. Curry is more valuable in the regular season and is one of the most valuable regular season players in history.

[colts18]

Man. I'm stunned by how low this group is on Curry.

Just completely floored.

I'll counter this by saying I think he's going too high (assuming he goes here).

He has 6 seasons that can argued he was a top 5ish level player, and these seasons included missed time (even entire series) in the playoffs and some bad series. Curry has been in a unique situation where his team is good enough to not only beat but dominate playoff opposition without him; in a normal situation, his 2016 and 2018 playoff injuries would have ended the season for his team and some of his poor performances would have been punished with defeat.

Even if we're focusing almost exclusively on peak, I'd look at Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Dywane Wade before looking at Curry, who imo proved capable of clearly greater 2-way dominance at the highest levels in the playoffs. Wade also has a clearly stronger/more complete overall body of work, with greater longevity at a high level.

I think the reason Curry is going this high is still residual hype from the 2016 RS where he looked game-breaking; the problem is that just never translated to the highest levels of playoff basketball. Odds are without the Durant move the Warriors never return to the Finals again.

Title teams typically can survive the first round without their best player,a dn sometimes can survive the second round. This is why missing the conference and finals round is penalized much more heavily.

Not really. We saw the Blazers losing in 1978 without Walton. We've seen the #1 seed Bulls in 2012 lose without D Rose in the 1st round.