MisterHibachi wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:MisterHibachi wrote:Curry's scoring diversity seems to have taken a significant dive this year.
66% (!!!) of his shots have come from 3 this year, by far a career high. Last year it was 59%, and his career high before this year was 60% in 2019. Obviously this means a career low attempts from 2pt range.
13% of his shots at the rim, lowest since 2013, and only shooting 59% on them, close to a career low and lowest since 2013.
He's essentially relying just on the 3 to score this year, and he's Steph Curry so it still works but some signs of decline here imo. He really needs Klay to come back to carry some of the scoring load.
So, I think this is certainly what we expect with age and thus I expect you're pointing to a real trend...but we are also talking about the Warriors being dramatically better offensively this year compared to last year. As such, I'd urge caution in interpreting Curry's numbers as if the only cause here is Curry getting older.
Consider the TS Add of the Warriors the past two years:
'20-21: +164.1 in 72 games
'21-22: +190.2 in 34 games
That's a dramatic improvement, and so practically speaking it's not the case that the Warriors are struggling to get good shots this year.
Is Curry's supporting cast more effective this year? Absolutely, and those players deserve credit for this...but they are doing this in a Curry-defined environment. We don't just "know" this because of reputation, Curry's +/- lead over the rest of the team is more dramatic than we've ever seen before:
'21-22: Curry +375, 2nd Place +188 (Green)
'20-21: Curry +242, 2nd Place +241 (Green)
'19-20: injured
'18-19: Curry +690, 2nd Place +660 (Durant)
'17-18: Curry +483, 2nd Place +397 (Thompson)
'16-17: Curry +1013, 2nd Place +820 (Green)
'15-16: Green +1071, 2nd Place +1022 (Curry)
'14-15: Curry +921, 2nd Palce +833 (Green)
Now, all typical caveats about raw +/- being overly simplistic and much depending on who each guy is playing with. Kerr used to be known for playing Curry & Green together as much as possible, now that's not the case.
But I think we're seeing quite clearly is that the Warriors are a more effective scoring team than last year on the back of the entire team basically being able to take advantage of Curry's gravity as a matter of course.
None of this is to say that Klay won't help, because if nothing else, Klay gives you the possibility of having a closer Curry-approximation when Curry's on the bench, but as a team, the story of this season is most definitely not of the Warrior offense sputtering.
The story continues to be how freakishly good the Warriors are able to play when they can rely on Curry dominating the defense's attention, and how differently the Warrior scheme works than basically any other in the league.
I'm not quite sure what TS added is, but the general gist of this argument to me seems to amount to the old gravity argument and Steph never being able to have a bad game.
He's shooting 39/36/89 over his last 20 games and the Warriors' offense ranks 15th during that time, similar to the Pelicans, Lakers and Nuggets, so I don't really see how the offense can be the story of the season for them.
In my opinion, the story of the season for the Warriors is their defense and Draymond's resurgence. Curry has been playing awful, below All NBA level basketball for the past month and half, yet they're still winning games based off their defense.
Not trying to argue anything either way, but do we think it's likely that other teams could have their best offensive player shoot such putrid percentages and still have a middle of the pack offense?
Watching the games, it's clear that Steph still has an outsize effect on opposing defenses even in this slump. Are the Warriors losing winnable games because of the slump? Absolutely. But I think there's something to be said for Steph's offensive impact being fairly resilient even when his scoring is not
