The Stephen Curry Thread (2015-16 Pt. 2)

[MisterHibachi]

They probably close out next game, but would be really disappointing if Curry got the FMVP. He doesn't deserve it one bit.

Without Green, all his weaknesses were in focus, particularly the lack of on-ball playmaking.

I think people are really prisoners of the make-or-miss moment here. Golden State's offense worked just fine, and yeah Klay was hot early, but the team was getting open looks down the stretch. They just weren't going in.

I also think people need to remember that as long as Curry is on the floor, he is the guy the defense is programmed to mitigate, and so he is the one creating the gravity others work with.

In terms of Finals MVP:

Among Warriors I believe Curry still has the most points, and had by far the most points in the ONLY game where the Warriors won on the back of a star's performance, all while being clearly THE guy the defense is geared to stop. On the other end? Had 3 blocks tonight and has a number of great steals. His man defense is always limited, but we just saw Kyrie tonight not seem to care whether it was Curry or Klay on him, so I think all the talk about that being all about Curry's defensive issues just doesn't hold up. When Kyrie plays like this, he's going to get his.

So yeah, I don't know who else I'd vote for Finals MVP from the Warriors besides Curry at this point. Could change in the next game or two, but right now I'd go Curry over Klay, and I've always thought (this year and last) that the notion that Iggy was truly more valuable just wildly underestimates the foundational impact the stars have in letting Iggy be that piece of the puzzle.

What about Cavs and the Finals MVP? Nah, not right now. Every reason to think this series is over in 5 if the Warriors were healthy tonight.

It seems like you're not even considering Draymond here? Which is strange given your last sentence, which implies you think Dray would make a world of a difference either in the performances of Kyrie and LeBron or have the Warriors offense running to its regular heights. Either way, that implies a lot of value and you didn't even mention him in the possibilities for FMVP...

[MisterHibachi]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

[MisterHibachi]

Klay is 6 threes from breaking Curry's record set last post season. 93 threes so far in the post season vs. 98 for Curry last year.

[Doctor MJ]

They probably close out next game, but would be really disappointing if Curry got the FMVP. He doesn't deserve it one bit.

Without Green, all his weaknesses were in focus, particularly the lack of on-ball playmaking.

I think people are really prisoners of the make-or-miss moment here. Golden State's offense worked just fine, and yeah Klay was hot early, but the team was getting open looks down the stretch. They just weren't going in.

I also think people need to remember that as long as Curry is on the floor, he is the guy the defense is programmed to mitigate, and so he is the one creating the gravity others work with.

In terms of Finals MVP:

Among Warriors I believe Curry still has the most points, and had by far the most points in the ONLY game where the Warriors won on the back of a star's performance, all while being clearly THE guy the defense is geared to stop. On the other end? Had 3 blocks tonight and has a number of great steals. His man defense is always limited, but we just saw Kyrie tonight not seem to care whether it was Curry or Klay on him, so I think all the talk about that being all about Curry's defensive issues just doesn't hold up. When Kyrie plays like this, he's going to get his.

So yeah, I don't know who else I'd vote for Finals MVP from the Warriors besides Curry at this point. Could change in the next game or two, but right now I'd go Curry over Klay, and I've always thought (this year and last) that the notion that Iggy was truly more valuable just wildly underestimates the foundational impact the stars have in letting Iggy be that piece of the puzzle.

What about Cavs and the Finals MVP? Nah, not right now. Every reason to think this series is over in 5 if the Warriors were healthy tonight.

It seems like you're not even considering Draymond here? Which is strange given your last sentence, which implies you think Dray would make a world of a difference either in the performances of Kyrie and LeBron or have the Warriors offense running to its regular heights. Either way, that implies a lot of value and you didn't even mention him in the possibilities for FMVP...

Let's separate this into 2 categories:

1) Should a player literally get credit for NOT be there when his team needs him? Never. Obviously. There have been 5 games. Green wasn't simply absent for 20% of the series, him not being there when the team counted on him meant that they were forced to play in a more imbalanced fashion than any team would ever be built to do. Green needs to be hit HARD for this.

Beyond that, there's a big difference between a player's absence giving courage to an opponent that eventually sees them catch fire, and them simply being able to score at will against the handicapped team in all circumstances no matter how the coach decides to adjust over the course of a series.

2) More generally there's the possibility that a player missing time leads you to conclude that he is the true keystone for the team far beyond anyone else. For those who believe this, it's understandable if they rate Green higher in general, and think he deserves the RS MVP more than Curry.

It's crucial again to note that a pre-req for this thinking is that the player's absence itself can be viewed as not that damaging to the overall sample, and in this case not only can you not do that, Green is literally to blame the absence in a way an injured player is not, and that has concrete meaning.

However I think it's also crucial when looking at a player's absence to deal with the variant nature of the game. Let's look on the other side:

Does it make sense to hold whoever was guarding Klay every time he made a shot in Game 6 of the last series once he caught fire? No, of course not. Sometimes guys are just feeling it.

So then, the proper way to evaluate Draymond's impact is to make sure you don't make any statement along the lines, "Draymond is the team's MVP because if he's gone against Cleveland LeBron & Kyrie will each score 40 points every time even if Golden State does everything possible to re-tweak their team to deal with such an attack.", because that's just not true.

Looking at a single game like this could make one naively think that Green was having 20-30 points worth of impact, but we all know that such things just aren't possible in NBA basketball.

[Texas Chuck]

So then, the proper way to evaluate Draymond's impact is to make sure you don't make any statement along the lines, "Draymond is the team's MVP because if he's gone against Cleveland LeBron & Kyrie will each score 40 points every time even if Golden State does everything possible to re-tweak their team to deal with such an attack.", because that's just not true.

Looking at a single game like this could make one naively think that Green was having 20-30 points worth of impact, but we all know that such things just aren't possible in NBA basketball.

But nobody is saying anything close to as silly as that. Especially that Kyrie and Lebron will go for 40 bit.

Draymond was clearly a huge loss for the Warriors. And I agree with you--that should hurt, not help his FMVP chances. But I don't think its remotely a coincidence that Lebron played with such confidence on the offensive end with Draymond gone. I'll be willing to change my opinion on that if Lebron plays the same way in game 6(even if he doesn't have the same results), but I think it was a huge factor.

As for Kyrie, credit to him for hitting a bunch of shots. If I'm Kerr and GSW I'd love to see him take those exact same shots in game 6. I don't remotely believe that sustainable.

[Doctor MJ]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

Well I think in general I try not to evaluate playoff performance by the game.

For example, I still had LeBron as my POY in '10 despite his walkabout game against Boston. Yeah, it was a terrible game, but it's not why they lost the series.

On the other hand I do knock LeBron for the '11 finals against Dallas because I saw him game after game out there unsure of what to do and it burning his team. Literally the team's offense broke down when Dallas put the right kind of pressure on LeBron, and that's a big deal.

The thing about Curry's ups & downs here is that to me none of it is keeping Golden State from playing it's game, and clearly Kerr agrees. In playing that game, it means essentially continuing to benefit from all the gravity Curry provides and arguably even more so than usual because Cleveland is trying considerably harder to limit Curry specifically than a typical team.

None of this is to say I don't have criticisms of Curry's play though. I think that it's really clear at this point that you can take him out of his individual game easier than other top tier players can. I think that his lazy passes drive me nuts - to me that's something he needs to be consistently awesome at - and of course his man defense issues are well documented.

[NyCeEvO]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

I can't stand the commentary coming out now..."See, he's just a good shooter"..."LeBron was always the best player"

There a few things going on:

1) Curry is either injured or at least worried about going 100%.

It should be pretty clear to anyone watching these Finals that something is wrong with him. 80% of the time we see Curry's face, he's got an emotionless reaction or is staring off into space. He's plays with so much more flare and passion than we normally see from him. Granted, Curry had the same expression when he struggled in last year's Finals but there were always moments of flare and dramatics. He would at least get into it for a few minutes. We really don't see any of that in these Finals.

Curry is not going to come out and say that he's injured since everyone is dealing with body fatigue and susceptible to some type of injury after playing 100 games, but it's pretty clear that he's worried about going all out on that MCL or he physically can't do it.

2&3) The Cavs hard hedge every Curry PnR/PnP & the refs aren't calling much on his drives to the basket

Even with whatever Curry is dealing with, he's still able to get around the pick and drive to the basket. However, the refs aren't calling body-to-body contact like they usually do in the regular season. They're doing it for both sides so I'm not saying that they're being unfair. However, these drives to the basket during which the ballhandler beats his man, the defender rides the ballhandler to force them to continue in one direction and/or put up a layup under heavy pressure are fouls during the regular season and most of the playoffs.

If Curry isn't open for 3 off of a PnP/PnR, he normally creates space for a shot or drives to the basket. The Cavs are hedging those picks, doubling Steph, and are willing to let the roll-man slip.

Curry clearly cannot create like he is normally able to do, and so now he's largely choosing to just drive to the basket after the PnR/PnP. Both he and Klay are getting a lot of physical contact on these drives but the refs aren't calling it. Again, the refs are doing the same to both sides so I'm not saying it's unfair but one can see why LBJ is able to succeed under these conditions more so than Curry.


If he was physically ok, I think he'd be way more confident in taking guys off the dribble and he'd be playing much better. But without the shot creation, he's forced to drive. The Cavs are daring the refs to make a call every time and the refs (probably because they don't want to be seen as controlling the games) are letting a lot of things go both ways.

With Steph being a step slow, not able to create as much nor as well as he normally does, and playing somewhat reserved, I'm not surprised by what we're seeing. I just wish all of these people who are basically calling him a fraud would admit their bias and recognize that there are clear reasons why Curry isn't dominating and it's not because he's simply folding under the pressure. You can attribute it to 1) injuries, 2) the Cavs defensive gameplan, and 3) the refs non-calls.

[G35]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

What about Lebron? I have the same questions about him, but he always has his numbers to back him up so that's good enough.

But it always comes back to did said player win or lose the game.

When the Warriors won G1 and G2 Curry was having a large amount of impact despite so-so shooting.

When the Warriors lose then his awesomeness is questioned. It really just depends on which side of the coin you are on decides whether he has had a bad game or not......

[ppedro123]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

What about Lebron? I have the same questions about him, but he always has his numbers to back him up so that's good enough.

But it always comes back to did said player win or lose the game.

When the Warriors won G1 and G2 Curry was having a large amount of impact despite so-so shooting.

When the Warriors lose then his awesomeness is questioned. It really just depends on which side of the coin you are on decides whether he has had a bad game or not......

what large amount of impact? GS was going on runs with Steph on the bench.

[PaulieWal]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

What about Lebron? I have the same questions about him, but he always has his numbers to back him up so that's good enough.

But it always comes back to did said player win or lose the game.

When the Warriors won G1 and G2 Curry was having a large amount of impact despite so-so shooting.

When the Warriors lose then his awesomeness is questioned. It really just depends on which side of the coin you are on decides whether he has had a bad game or not......

What? LeBron is openly criticized for is bad games and series losses. Curry for whatever reason has escaped the scrutiny that other superstars like LeBron or even Kobe used to get for their bad games/moments.

[gaf234]

The thing about Curry's ups & downs here is that to me none of it is keeping Golden State from playing it's game, and clearly Kerr agrees. In playing that game, it means essentially continuing to benefit from all the gravity Curry provides and arguably even more so than usual because Cleveland is trying considerably harder to limit Curry specifically than a typical team.

What does this even mean? Curry hasn't played as well as he did in the RS, and his team subsequently hasn't played as well as they did in the RS. The fact that GSW is still good enough to be up 3-2 in the Finals should maybe cause you to reflect that there's more to a 73 win team than a nebulous notion of "gravity".

And personally, I don't even agree Curry has been playing poorly overall. But when he has had clunkers (see games 1 and 3), it hurts his team. That's no different than any other player in history.

[cpower]

It was tied up at the half. That is what I thought he was waiting for for a great 2nd half performance.

Unless every time he pull up from 30 feet and scored, there was not much he would have done. TT and Lebron was in the lane waiting for him and we had nobody to stop them from scoring down low. HB at center...there is very little room for mistake playing like that.
Curry was cold from long range tonight so that was it.

Yeah, whole team went cold. It happens.

People used to like to say: Live by the 3, die by the 3.

It's always true. It's a high variance attack - which is why frankly I'm chocked a team like this even got close to the Bulls' win record - but also means that the real playoff question is just whether you're going to be in the zone enough to win 4 games before the other team.

If in the next game GS catches fire from 3 and wins in a blowout people are going to celebrate Green even if he barely puts up any numbers, but the reality is there's a lot of luck involved here. I don't want to take away the profound impact Green has on the team by any means, but the problem tonight wasn't the GS offense failing to generate looks, it was what was going on on the other end of the floor.

The warriors have not figured out how to react to trapping Curry. It's either Curry breaks out of the trap himself and goes one on one or somehow ball ends up with lesser shooter's hands for a late clock jumper. I think they should set the screen better, or running some back door plays or somehow gets the ball back to Curry's hands again. They let the cavs get away with a lot of potential easy basket.

[mischievous]

And it seems to me that people here are starting to drift towards a position where it's impossible for Curry to have a bad game. So even if he shoots bad, or doesn't shoot at all, or plays bad defense, or does what we generally think a bad game consists of, it's brushed off as, well he has so much impact just being on the floor as a spacer and he gets his team open looks just by being there. Basically saying that's it's impossible for him to have a bad game, impact wise. On paper, such a player is possible, but in practice, I'm not willing to afford any player that kind of leeway. How can we ever call out any kind of great spacer for a bad game? Can we call out Shaq for his bad games? Dirk, Ray Allen? How about the great offensive rebounders who always need a body on them?

This is what i've been trying to say but i failed to word it in a such a way and it would usually come out in a sarcastic tone. The problem is, even if Curry does have impact when his box scores don't look good, that isn't nearly enough when he set such a high standard for himself in the regular season. Some had it as "Goat season" others like myself had it top 5-10ish, whatever the case he's failed to play up to that standard and it seems some of his fans either won't admit it or make up stuff to make it appear he has played to that level.

[therealbig3]

He's had a bad Finals, no two ways about that.

I think some people are underrating his playoffs though. Just because it's not at the same level as his RS, it doesn't mean he's been bad. Before the Finals, he played well for the most part whenever he was on the court.

And if you look at his numbers, he's still putting up superstar production. It's not close to GOAT-level, but I think everyone realizes at this point that he's out of the GOAT peak discussion. Really, he was out of it when he missed so many games, but the fact that he has had legitimate struggles even when he has played definitely means he's not in the conversation anymore.

[Doctor MJ]

The thing about Curry's ups & downs here is that to me none of it is keeping Golden State from playing it's game, and clearly Kerr agrees. In playing that game, it means essentially continuing to benefit from all the gravity Curry provides and arguably even more so than usual because Cleveland is trying considerably harder to limit Curry specifically than a typical team.

What does this even mean? Curry hasn't played as well as he did in the RS, and his team subsequently hasn't played as well as they did in the RS. The fact that GSW is still good enough to be up 3-2 in the Finals should maybe cause you to reflect that there's more to a 73 win team than a nebulous notion of "gravity".

And personally, I don't even agree Curry has been playing poorly overall. But when he has had clunkers (see games 1 and 3), it hurts his team. That's no different than any other player in history.

There's obviously more to a 73 win team than any one player.

As to "gravity", well I don't remember you so I don't know if you pay attention to the lingo people use nowadays when discussing the trends of the current era. It's called "pace & space" because team's are looking to put the defense in bad positions. Attacking in transition means attacking the defense at their weakest, hence the "pace". The "space" means that that the further out you separate the defenders, the more room you have to exploit them. This is the entire idea behind "stretch 4s".

A useful contrast between Curry's gravity and, say, LeBron's, comes in the fact that LeBron's game has forced Love to play as a stretch 4 and thus killed off basically everything about Love's game that made him able to lead the league in rebounding or volume score efficiently. Were he to play with Curry, not only would that be unnecessary but the fact that Curry's scoring potential from the 3 sucks the defense outward would make it even easier for Love to do his thing.

Put more succinctly:

Curry stretches the defense
LeBron compresses the defense

Both can be useful in theory, but the former I would argue has its value amplified by the modern rules that are more lenient relating to team defense.

[RSCD3_]

The thing about Curry's ups & downs here is that to me none of it is keeping Golden State from playing it's game, and clearly Kerr agrees. In playing that game, it means essentially continuing to benefit from all the gravity Curry provides and arguably even more so than usual because Cleveland is trying considerably harder to limit Curry specifically than a typical team.

What does this even mean? Curry hasn't played as well as he did in the RS, and his team subsequently hasn't played as well as they did in the RS. The fact that GSW is still good enough to be up 3-2 in the Finals should maybe cause you to reflect that there's more to a 73 win team than a nebulous notion of "gravity".

And personally, I don't even agree Curry has been playing poorly overall. But when he has had clunkers (see games 1 and 3), it hurts his team. That's no different than any other player in history.

There's obviously more to a 73 win team than any one player.

As to "gravity", well I don't remember you so I don't know if you pay attention to the lingo people use nowadays when discussing the trends of the current era. It's called "pace & space" because team's are looking to put the defense in bad positions. Attacking in transition means attacking the defense at their weakest, hence the "pace". The "space" means that that the further out you separate the defenders, the more room you have to exploit them. This is the entire idea behind "stretch 4s".

A useful contrast between Curry's gravity and, say, LeBron's, comes in the fact that LeBron's game has forced Love to play as a stretch 4 and thus killed off basically everything about Love's game that made him able to lead the league in rebounding or volume score efficiently. Were he to play with Curry, not only would that be unnecessary but the fact that Curry's scoring potential from the 3 sucks the defense outward would make it even easier for Love to do his thing.

Put more succinctly:

Curry stretches the defense
LeBron compresses the defense

Both can be useful in theory, but the former I would argue has its value amplified by the modern rules that are more lenient relating to team defense.

About love I dont know how much lebron takes away from his inside game but him losing about 20-30 lbs since 2014 certainly has a lot to do with it. Kevin doesnt have the strength to post 4's up anymore, and frankly he struggles against a good number of 3's, this is amplified in the fact that he struggles to get position for offensive rebounding when he does try.

I quite frankly question how much love's full potential is worth as an offensive player since he sucks inside if he's not drawing fouls whenever he does have a possession down there. The other thing is his favorite position is the elbow not the low post, he never killed like shaq more like dirk in theory and lebron's best spot is the same elbow as love's. This aspect is underplayed in court geometry.

[TaylorMonkey]

The fact that GSW is still good enough to be up 3-2 in the Finals should maybe cause you to reflect that there's more to a 73 win team than a nebulous notion of "gravity".

Gravity is hardly nebulous. It can and has objectively been measured and observed.

[BasketballFan7]

Love can't do his thing inside. His finishing is atrocious and his weight loss has killed his offensive rebounding as much as standing outside.

I have been defending Love all year and I still think he can be a bit contributor to a winning team with his spacing, elbow and outlet passing, elbow play, IQ, and defensive rebounding (although he embarrassingly let Curry snatch one over him yesterday), but his struggles have to be acknowledged. Absolutely brutal finisher and I hardly consider him posting up Klay Thompson or Harrison Barnes a good idea, in fact I dread seeing the Cavs rely on that so-called mismatch.

[Cuban_Linx]

He missed good looks, and the warriors system and most of their offensive sets have the ball off of his hands.

The tean webt 3/21 from 3 in the second at one point, and they missed at least 5-6 wide open looks.

Also draymond leaving made iggy play the 5. Offense operated normally. They missed good looks though obviously it wasnt the same but it was alrigbt. Defensively obviously he couldnt vuard lebron, and he took advantage of that

I dont undstand people saying thjs proves anything though. He mames w of his 3 missed open threes and makes his initial layup on the offensive rebound earlier and hits that layup that only lebron could block then we bave a typical curry game

"Just add 4 makes and 10 points to his game and he was actually great!!"

I don't think that's how it works

Either way the entire second half I just felt like we were 1 Barnes trey away from a GS win. It just seemed like the type of game where one role player hits a big shot (two of Barnes' bricks could've brought them within 4 for example) and then all of sudden the rest falls in place and Steph carries them home. It didn't happen but it was not as hopeless as I feel many people are making it sound like despite the insane performances of Kyrie and Bron. The last quarter was 19-13 for the Cavs. Barnes makes one of those triples with 10 minutes to go and who knows what happens.

OT: This is not about Steph, but Kyrie has been incredible this series. Can't help but feel the Cavs are 3-2 up here if LeBron actually shows up in game 4.

[gaf234]

There's obviously more to a 73 win team than any one player.

As to "gravity", well I don't remember you so I don't know if you pay attention to the lingo people use nowadays when discussing the trends of the current era. It's called "pace & space" because team's are looking to put the defense in bad positions. Attacking in transition means attacking the defense at their weakest, hence the "pace". The "space" means that that the further out you separate the defenders, the more room you have to exploit them. This is the entire idea behind "stretch 4s".

A useful contrast between Curry's gravity and, say, LeBron's, comes in the fact that LeBron's game has forced Love to play as a stretch 4 and thus killed off basically everything about Love's game that made him able to lead the league in rebounding or volume score efficiently. Were he to play with Curry, not only would that be unnecessary but the fact that Curry's scoring potential from the 3 sucks the defense outward would make it even easier for Love to do his thing.

Put more succinctly:

Curry stretches the defense
LeBron compresses the defense

Both can be useful in theory, but the former I would argue has its value amplified by the modern rules that are more lenient relating to team defense.

I'm familiar with the term, and in complete agreement with your assessment of how it relates to Lebron's and Steph's games.

"Gravity" is a well defined, meaningful term, but its also hard to quantify in a straightforward way. And in this particular instance you seem to be offloading a whole lot of work onto it. When you say Curry's gravity is enough to keep GSW rolling, that basically seems to amount to saying, as long as GSW wins, we have evidence Curry played well, which itself boils down to evaluating Curry on the basis of GSW's wins and losses.

If you really think that's the way to evaluate Curry, I'd be interested in hearing more, but I don't think such an approach can withstand scrutiny. Just trivially, Curry's team won game 1 by 15, and lost game 5 by 15. Which game was he better in?

For all his gravity, for all the defensive attention he takes on himself, he was -1 in game 1, a game his team won relatively comfortably. How much credit does he get for that? Yes, it can't be doubted that when he was on the floor, even in that poor performance, he was creating opportunities for others by his mere presence, but the bottom line is they won that game because Curry's backup came in and delivered big. They didn't win it off of Curry's gravity. It wasn't enough to get separation from the Cavs.

That's what I meant when I said you can't boil down a 73 win team to any single player or single factor. And I think if we only go so deep as to say, "Well, we know Curry provides massive impact via his gravity, so as long as GSW continues winning, he's obviously still doing what he needs", we're not really going to understand just how this team works. We need to place 73 in more context than just Curry, or the Splash brothers. or even their great spacing.


BTW I also agree with what (I think) your overall assessment of Curry's PO. Not as good as his (GOAT level) RS, but he's been great, and is playing very much in line with his PO run last year, which was also great.