RealGM Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #5 - 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain

[Lou Fan]

Super busy few days so I can't put as much into this as I'd like but wanna get my votes in.

1. 64 Russ
Alt: 62/65

After Shaq it gets a lot tougher for me, but I think Russ is the right choice here. Nothing compares to the dominance he had in the defenses he led.

From 1961-1965 the ran off 5 consecutive historically dominant seasons. In 1961 they were 8.2 points better than league average, 62 8.7, 63 9.1, 64 11.5!!!, 65 9.9. Just look at those numbers. It's absolutely staggering. But how do I know Russell was driving that impact you ask? First, before Russell they were a bottom defensive team and immediately jumped 6.3 points relatie to league average (-1.8 to +4.5) and 8.0 unadjusted points (keep in mind there were only 8 teams so 1 team could effect league averages significantly). 8 point defensive improvement and that's rookie Russ. Then after Russell they dropped to the middle of the pack, losing 6.2 relative points and 10.1 raw points as they go from +6.9 to +0.7. This is old man retiring Russ impact (though admittedly he was still damn good). Now just imagine the impact peak Russ was pumping out on the ridiculously dominant 1964 Celtics defense. This Celtics defense was 5.6 points better than the second best team in the league.

Russell's freak athleticism and size allowed him to be a pantheon level defender both vertically and horizontally. He covered wide swaths of the court stifling threats left and right while also protecting the rim at an all time clip. His defensive versatility is incredibly valuable as it allows coaching staffs tons of flexibility on what type of schemes to run that will best suit your other players. Russ was like a makeup artist. He covers up all the blemishes. His defensive skillset (the vast majority of his impact) is therefore highly portable as it's hard to imagine a team scenario where his defense loses much value. Even next to another elite rim protector he could play the more KG role and be dominant that way. That's the thing about Russell our minds don't quite understand his defensive value because there is no other real comparison. He's KG if he protected the rim like Duncan or Duncan if he moved like KG. These are both imo Mount Rushmore defenders and he has the best of both of them. I might even be understating his mobility as he was a world class high jumper and according to teammates an incredibly fast sprinter.

The notion that Russ is a one way peak is wrong. Russ was a clear positive on the offensive end as one of the few players in NBA history to be able to ramp up his volume AND his efficiency in the playoffs and provide a ton of value as an offensive rebounder and passer out of the high post. Unlike his rival Wilt he understood how to play basketball as a member of the team and when taking a step back would help his team.

Alt: 62/65 Russell

2. 17 Curry

Probably the greatest offensive player in the history of the game at the peak of his powers. Still leaving just an absolutely massive impact footprint while sacrificing a ton to fit KD into their team. The most portable superstar in the history of the game and capable of just absolutely breaking the game of basketball. Capable of dropping 50/50/98 with 2 turnovers in total in a 6 game series while being guarded by Pat Bev and playing primarily off the ball type ridiculousness (this was in 2019 but still). Underrated as a passer and his gravity makes him an all time playmaker. Also, the intangibles mean something to me here. Amazing leader and culture/locker room builder.

3. 04 KG

I will defend this pick more later when it gets more traction but for now he's similar to Curry in that he provides all time level impact that fits on any team context.

[Samurai]

1. Wilt 1967. Full disclosure - I watched very few games of Wilt that season in real time but reading what the pundits were saying about him that season still left a clear impression. Led the league in rebounds, third in assists (behind Guy Rodgers and Big O), fifth in scoring at 24.1 pts/game and led the league with a staggering 68% fg pct - a number that was just completely unheard of at that time. And while his numbers dipped a bit (for him) in the playoffs to 21.7 pts/game on 57.9% shooting, his rebounding jumped up to 29.1 reb/game. That season almost seemed mythical.

2. Russell 1964. I wouldn't be human to not include my first favorite player, watching Russell play is what got me interested in playing basketball. The GOAT defensive player having his best defensive season, setting the all-time record of 16 DWS that season; a number that just dwarfs the number put up by any player in history not named Russell. Led the league with 24.7 reb/game, 4th highest ever (behind 3 Wilt seasons). And while it is his defense that gets him this high, he also averaged 15 pts/game and finished 7th in the NBA with 4.7 assists/game.

3. Hakeem 1994. I could see the argument that his RS may have been a tad better in 93, but his 94 PS is what makes the difference for me. One of the key factors was his Finals performance in 94 against Ewing and the Knicks in which he scored 26.9 ppg compared to 23.1 ppg in his WCF loss to the Sonics. Just a tremendous 2-way player.

[falcolombardi]

Interestingly the voting is turning out fairly similar to the last time, even lebron chosen peak year was the same! (A bummer, i really thought this was 2009 time, or 2016 or -even better- 2017/2018 to spice it up)

[MyUniBroDavis]

Interestingly the voting is turning out fairly similar to the last time, even lebron chosen peak year was the same! (A bummer, i really thought this was 2009 time, or 2016 or -even better- 2017/2018 to spice it up)

2016 was the closest right? That’s at least a big change lol

[MyUniBroDavis]

Something worth mentioning is over that 2017-2019 span, the Warriors were 27-4 with Curry and without KD, and they were 23-17 vice versa

15-3 in 2017
8-0 in 2018
4-1 in 2019

Curry is weird to me, on one hand I do understand the point for Curry here over others, I might agree with it actually. I think some of the arguments that talk about how Curry would do back then are weird to me, because a lot of it post three point line revolves around teams being dumber back then, and for the most part the guys here prolly look worse today than Curry does since we’ve gravitated away against inside bigs.

Beyond that, just from a basis of level of play, his level of play in the 2017 playoffs is utterly absurd, and would fit here. In terms of the years they played, I think Curry belongs in this tier, the issue is more so that he wasn’t tested, but I don’t think that necessarily should bring him down when he performs at the level he did

In terms of projecting forwards or backwards, post up inside bigs are a bit out of fashion offensively at least, and the defensive impact of rim protection has gone down, and in general defensive impact has gone down.

Otoh, I think intrinsically the idea of lessening currys impact because teams weren’t smart enough to use him right just seems a bit crazy to me

Otoh I don’t think there’s a really big separation between Curry and other guys of this era that rank far lower so it’s strange to me

[Proxy]

I completely forgot about the closing time for this round cuz I was busy, Kareem getting in was cool and I don't have anyone new to add until my other 3 closest guys get in so copy pasting until i'll hopefully have more time in a few weeks. My plan is to give more direct comparisons between players in some future posts instead of just replies rather than really just arguing why I feel a player has a case when i care because that is probably more helpful.

4.1962 Bill Russell (1964, 1963, 1965)


Now number 4 is arguably the most influential player ever with how he transformed the way defense is played in the league forever.  The greatest defender ever, and the engine behind one of the greatest dynasties in sports history.

There are alot of reasons to believe Russell played a significant part in the Celtics team dominance and many have argued how he has a case for being the most valuable player of his era so I won't focus TOO much on that unless asked to.

Here are a few pretty strong indicators he has:

-We can see it on film and we can read/hear about the era in news articles and from others that have experienced the era.

-WOWY data(also looking at the team pre and post Russell and how the league changed over time).

-Team minutes distribution(how remained constant but everyone around him changed and played nowhere near the same amount of minutes in most years and they were still dominant), etc.

-

But i'll talk about why I believe their team net ratings still undersell how dominant they truly were like I did in the last thread for 2 main reasons.

1. Using the commonly used net ratings is not a true era adjustment - in lower scoring environments a team being worth +5 per 100 has more value, this can be seen when comparing the TS+ framework vs using rTS%.

Real life situations will never be this extreme but here is an example as to why we should use the former

In a league where the average TS% is 10, being +5 would mean you are scoring at a rate 1.5x(150% better) more effectively than league average

In a league where the average TS% is 50, being +5 would mean you are scoring at a rate 1.1x(110% better) more effectively than league average

When calculating net ratings using percentages rather than absolutes, the Celtcs would likely look even more dominant because the era they played in was a lower scoring environment and significantly harder for other teams to make up ground with less PPP available.

2. The Celtics having their outlier dominance in a league with 8 ish teams drags down league averages, supressing their own numbers, and makes it harder to drag them down even further(which is probably why their playoff team numbers look so wonky).

I'm also starting to believe Russell is just a very clear positive offensive player. I think many people think of him the wrong way because he does seem to have a bunch of flaws in the halfcourt on film(like his post scoring arsenal does not seem very efficient, turnovers even tho that just seems like an era thing).

Some of his unique-ness was shown in this video by WCA
https://youtu.be/PEs4KC4xHE0

When I think of him being a truly all-time level transition threat for a center with and without the ball, with great court awarenes, very strong passing for a center that even allowed him to work as the ball handler in pick-and-roll actions, a modern-ish handle that could take other bigs off the dribble, all-time offensive rebounding ability, a little bit of a post game, and lob potential with his athleticism. I really think this is a unicorn that could be a clear positive on most teams but maybe i'm just higher on him than others.

You can see some of it in this game
https://youtu.be/HE6kIu34Qsc

I think it's possible his RS efficiency is also suppressed by taking alot of late shot clock bailout shots(his teammates are also overstated offensively), I feel like i've seen this a lot on film.

But in the season I chose for his peak and in a large chunk of his prime not only does his efficiency rise, but his volume rose in the playoffs as well which is very rare for an all-timer.

From backpicks.com (from '60 - '66)
Going from a negative OBPM -> +.073 OBPM(Peaking as +1.2 in '62)

Other years could deserve a shot for sure, but from what I gathered this was the most dominant RS Celtics team in the RS and was followed by Russell's arguably best playoff run ever so I decided to go with this one and give him the slight edge over my upcoming picks.

I'm just going to focus on my next 3 picks(which are pretty much a tie) and give brief explanations for the closest snubs, hopefully being able to add more detailed explanations when I have more time.

-2017 Stephen Curry

● Arguably the GOAT scoring regular season in 2016 - 42.5 points per 75/Lead leading scoring average of 30.1 PPG, on a game-breaking 124 TS+(!), leading the Dubs to a #1 ITW +8.1 rORTG(iirc this ranked t3 ever but they didnt go as much into offense as the 04 Mavs and 05 Suns and their -2.6 rDRTG got them to a >+10 net rating

●Warps defenses like no other with his shooting threat(spacing) and all-time off-ball movement(gravity). - All-time scalability contributed to unmatched team dominance with more talent wasadded. 15.4 box creation estimate in 2016 - arguably still understating his off-ball value(via backpicks.coms)

●Good passer for a PG, though not rly one of his stronger passing seasons - 7.6 passer rating via backpicks.com in 2017, decent turnover economy

●Solid POA defender, and is decent as a chaser which helps contribute to him being a good team defender, though his defense has improved in 2022 with added bulk, I'd still say he's a slight positive in the year chosen. Attacking Steph has also not really been that viable of a strategy generally and teams have mostly gotten bad offenses out of that so idk why people are so bent on that tbh. I think people struggle to understand that he gets attacked because he’s surrounded by a bunch of defenders better than him, not because he’s some bad or really exploitable defender or anything.

●For the stats, I'm sure you'll see Steph pop up at the top of any APM studies, with larger team samples showing that he deserves a significant amount of credit for team dominance(don't find his collinearity with Draymond a strong argument)

●Highest 5-year on/off and on court net rating of all-time: 15 - '19 Stephen Curry(+15.9 on-court net/+17.7 on/off)

●Many would however argue his effectiveness declines in the playoffs, however in the 2017 season into the playoffs when healthy, if there were any doubt about his resilience, I believe he was basically performing around the same level as a player as he was in 2016 - there were no significant change in his skillset, he rly just had a weird start at the start of the season when incorporating KD and when they took off they were arguably the best healthy team ever.

● There are still some indicators that suggest he still has extremely high, top 5 ish level impact in the playoffs - such as his on/off only taking a slight dip when taking only games he played in, and his change in scoring efficiency against stronger defenses in his prime isn't rly abnormal for an all-time standard, really only being dented by the Rockets switching defense and the Memphis Grizzlies in his prime and dismantling other all-time defenses like the 2019 Raptors and 2022 Celtics past his peak(though the physical changes arguably did help him a lot).

●Even without Klay and KD(arguably rly the only strong positive offensive players on some of those teams) - his scoring, and more importantly team dominance were extremely high in the playoffs - from 2016-2019 the Warriors had a 119 ORTG and +10 net rating without those two on the court via pbpstats.com (a very small sample of 287 minutes). Still, again I believe reinforces the idea that he was really the driving force behind the Warriors' dominance(+12 team net rating in the playoffs from 2015 to 2022 iirc).

●I'm not the biggest fan of using postseason one-number metrics at all(especially if they are hybrids because the box prior can underrate/overrate particular abilities, which I will go into on a future player), but even APM approximates like backpicks.com's AuPM/g paint 2017 playoffs Steph as having the 3rd highest peak on record of +7.5/g(!), right behind 2009 and 2017 LeBron and one spot ahead of Timmy in 2003. This makes sense seeing as how they had a staggering +17.2 net rating in those playoffs and still had a 123 ORTG in 127 minutes without Durant that year while they only had a 105 ORTG in an almost insignificant 60-minute sample with Durant and without Curry via pbpstats.com.

●I think of Steph similarly to how I think of Russell, both the driving forces behind two of the arguably top three dynasties to play the game with outlier-ish level value on one end and having a possibly misunderstood, underrated, positive value on the other end.

-2004 Kevin Garnett

●Kevin Garnett IMO contributes more positive value in different aspects than any other player that has ever played the game. I’m running out of time so I’ll link some great breakdowns of his offense and defense and why he was one of the most valuable players on both ends by drza and I will just explain why I regard him so highly.

Offense: https://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/150868850871/mechanisms-of-greatness-scouting-kevin-garnetts

Defense: https://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/150844038866/mechanisms-of-greatness-scouting-kevin-garnetts

●Strengthening the argument that Kevin Garnett was one of the most valuable players of his era, arguably being THE most valuable at his peak in the regular season. KG in the 2003-04 season provided the highest single-season APM/g of +9.4 leading a pretty mediocre twolves cast to a +5.9 net rating, 58 wins, and the top of the western conference in the the deadball era, with a shot to make the finals if not for injury(via backpicks.com) and four other seasons in the top forty all-time. KG alongside LeBron stand alone at the top upon the top of any of these type of value measurements and they have an argument for being the top two most valuable players in the league in the 2000s(with Shaq and Timmy being right there too ofc for their peaks but Tim looking slightly behind).
Year by year in his prime:
1997 - +4.5
1998 - +4.8
1999 - +5
2000 - +6 (26th all–time)
2001 - +2.1
2002 - +3.6
2003 - +7.2(11th all-time)
2004 - +9.4(1st all-time)
2005 - +4.5
2006 - +4.6
2007(inj)  - +6.2 (23rd all-time)
2008 - +6.3 (21st all-time)
2009(inj) - +5.3
2010 - +3.5
2011 - +4.8
2012 - +3.2

●I would normally be skeptical of the 2003/2004 Wolves results as it is easier to be more valuable on a weaker team more dependent on his strengths, but the recurring signal in which he posted massive value signals again with an even stronger, less dependent team in Boston(a -8.6 rDRTG in his first season there - a +11.3 net rating in the RS and +8.8 and +8.6 PS team net rating in the '08 and '10 playoff runs respectively) matches the film suggesting that he was possibly the most versatile player of all-time, with his ability as both a floor raiser and ceiling raiser and that his results in Minnesota were not just some outlier that should be ignored.
The reason I am so high on KG is that I believe his game is actually extremely resilient to the playoffs and that people over-fixate on his scoring weaknesses, which leads to his value being understated in box metrics because of his scoring efficiency does drop(normal for an all-timer), the box score is also genuinely pretty bad at gauging defensive value that does have the possibility of increasing in value in the playoffs.  This scouting report  by SideshowBob from a few years ago describes some ways in which many aspects of his game can not be measured traditionally by box metrics, and in a larger sample of raw +/- data we see that his game may have translated well to the playoffs despite the drop in scoring efficiency:


^https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1587761&p=57014420&hilit=KG#p57014420

●So like I said before, I believe the big ticket has an argument that he added positive value in more different ways than any other player ever, this skillset allowed him to both be one of the best floor-raisers, and one of the best ceiling-raisers of all time as well too, and to me his game has shown to be resilient to the playoffs over a larger postseason sample size(one data point is how is on/ off in the RS from '00 to '12 is +12.4, while it is +17.8 in that same stretch).

●Some of my quick reasons/concerns for not yet listing a few of the closest people I think have arguments yet(again I will go into more detail when I have more time/they are more popular picks). I would still love to hear other thoughts if people disagree with what I have to say ofc

Wilt: Inconsistency year to year gives me a bit less confidence in him, in 1967 it seems like he put things together, and that 76ers team was for sure one of the more dominant teams of all time, as well as him putting one of the more dominant playoff runs ever, but how sustainable is his value? Was that team just a perfect fit and I should have less confidence when picking him to lead my team in a vacuum? It wasn’t too long after his 64 and 67 seasons where he just had a flat-out questionable impact from the WOWY data we had(1965 and 1969).

Walton: Mainly durability/sample size related

Magic: I believe Steph is a slightly better defender than Magic was in his actual peak years, with a slight preference in his offense, but those two like everyone else in this tier are basically just picking from preference and in Magic’s prime he has a strong argument for being the most resilient offensive player the game has ever seen.

Bird: Without granular +/- or team info for the playoffs, I’m not entirely sure just how resilient his game was even though it looks like a case of someone being underrated by traditional box score measurements, I also think there's quite a bit of variance on how his defense could be perceived.

Hakeem: I’m really just not very high on Hakeem as an offensive player, his value indicators in the regular season lag behind those players even when in a more optimal situation(from a role standpoint, not a supporting talent one) like the ‘93 to ‘95 Rockets(we don’t have +/- data for 1993 which I think is his peak but his ‘94 and ‘95 indicators don’t seem game-breaking or anything to me like the other players I named even if they are still all-time great. He also he never really played on a great team or gave me much reason to believe his offense would scale too well looking at the situations where he did have a bit more talent in his career, his versatility pops out to me as being severely overrated. He does definitely seem like a playoff riser offensively, but I also think his defense is a step down from his defensive peak - I believe similar-ish in value to peak KG, Duncan, and Wilt in those years, and the Rockets feel like a really high variance team with their advanced outside shooting which I believe helped them overrperform. I can’t see a strong argument at all for him being the best offensive player ITW in any of his seasons with his passing and optimal decision-making issues, and it's hard for me to see him really toning down his detrimental tendencies to play a role more within the flow of a cohesive offesive attack because to me the willingness(which did improve throughout his career), still just wasn't really there consistently.

Tim: I don’t really like him as much as I do KG on either end but it’s basically splitting hairs again. His RS signals aren’t quite as strong as the other names I gave from the pbp era and I think it’s a little strange how much of a stark contrast his playoffs +/- data looks from that special peak from ‘01 - ‘03 have to the rest of his career, his value may be inflated by the situation?? I think his scalability is a bit underrated because people overlook 2005 for whatever reason but it’s just a bit shakier for me compared to the other people I’m voting for this round.

1. 1962 Bill Russell
(1964, 1963, 1965)
-I think of his defense is being probably just as valuable as Steph's offense(and maybe even more portable), but his offense being better than Steph's defense
2. 2017 Stephen Curry
(2016)
-When push comes to shove I feel Steph has a slightly more impressive statistical footprint and argument for the playoffs than KG, without the 2021 regular season where I was quite impressed with what Steph did in that circumstance as a floor raiser when they moved off Wiseman I might've went KG over him here
3. 2004 Kevin Garnett
(2003)

[penbeast0]

Curios why we don't just do Polls for this? I feel like a Poll would make it more clear who's the winner.

The object is to have discussions. Same reason we generally don't allow votes without reasoning. Polls take that to the extreme.

[LA Bird]

Here are the results for round 5

Winner: 67 Chamberlain

There were 17 voters in this round: Dutchball97, ty 4191, DraymondGold, Eddy_JukeZ, ardee, SickMother, ceoofkobefans, homecourtloss, trelos6, Ginoboleee, Dr Positivity, capfan33, Djoker, falcolombardi, Lou Fan, Samurai, Proxy

A total of 24 seasons received at least 1 vote: 03 Duncan, 03 Garnett, 04 Garnett, 07 Nowitzki, 15 Curry, 16 Curry, 17 Curry, 19 Curry, 22 Jokic, 62 Russell, 63 Russell, 64 Chamberlain, 64 Russell, 65 Russell, 66 Russell, 67 Chamberlain, 68 Chamberlain, 76 Erving, 86 Bird, 88 Olajuwon, 93 Olajuwon, 94 Olajuwon, 95 Olajuwon, 97 Malone

Top 5 seasons
67 Chamberlain: 1.000 (23-0)
03 Duncan: 0.957 (22-1), loses to 67 Chamberlain
94 Olajuwon: 0.905 (19-2), loses to 03 Duncan, 67 Chamberlain
64 Chamberlain: 0.870 (20-3), loses to 03 Duncan, 67 Chamberlain, 94 Olajuwon
64 Russell: 0.864 (19-3), loses to 03 Duncan, 64 Chamberlain, 67 Chamberlain

H2H record
67 Chamberlain vs 03 Duncan: 10-3
67 Chamberlain vs 94 Olajuwon: 11-2
67 Chamberlain vs 64 Chamberlain: 12-1
67 Chamberlain vs 64 Russell: 13-2
03 Duncan vs 94 Olajuwon: 7-4
03 Duncan vs 64 Chamberlain: 8-4
03 Duncan vs 64 Russell: 9-5
94 Olajuwon vs 64 Chamberlain: 5-4
94 Olajuwon vs 64 Russell: 5-5
64 Chamberlain vs 64 Russell: 5-4

[70sFan]

I didn't make the voting unfortunately, have been very busy recently. I hope to make a bigger contribution in the next thread.

[Owly]

RealGM Greatest Peaks List (2022)
1. 1990-91 Michael Jordan
2. 2012-13 LeBron James
3. 1999-00 Shaquille O'Neal
4. 1976-77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5. ?


Please vote for your 3 highest player peaks and at least one line of reasoning for each of them.

Vote example 1
1. 1991 Jordan: Explanation
2. 2013 LeBron: Explanation
3. 2000 Shaq: Explanation

In addition, you can also list other peak season candidates from those three players. This extra step is entirely optional

Vote example 2
1. 1991 Jordan: Explanation
(1990 Jordan)
2. 2013 LeBron: Explanation
(2012 LeBron)
(2009 LeBron)
3. 2000 Shaq: Explanation

You can visit the project thread for further information on why this makes a difference and how the votes will be counted at the end of the round.

Voting for this round will close on Sunday July 3, 9am ET.

Curios why we don't just do Polls for this? I feel like a Poll would make it more clear who's the winner.

I haven't really followed nor done a lot of polling (whilst I'm here can I ask out of the OP quote tag? Thanks) but my impressions (could be wrong) would be:

Don't otoh think a poll allows you to show preferences.

Poll wouldn't allow you to rank multiple years in different places (this example shows better than the one in each thread OP - viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2199502 - voter wants '92 Jordan below multiple iterations of LeBron even though a Jordan season is top of their ballot).

Poll limits options making alternate candidate voting probably unworkable or at least very reliant on reading the thread as present. Probably prejudices voting too.

Per previous answer value is in the debate. Public voting with reasoning required should give a more transparent and thus useful end product and hopefully encourages more serious consideration. Note: OP seems to require at least one line of reasoning - presumably necessary to have votes counted.

[capfan33]

Is curry offense more impactful in era than russel defense? Team wide results also say no and yet russel has got almpst no traction compared to steph

So on Russell, this is part of something bigger I'm struggling with.

For a good long time I had Russell as my GOAT. To this day, I still admire him more than any other athlete...

but he was the best in the world at a sport that didn't realize what humans could do at shooting a basketball.

In a sport where guys can shoot like they do now, you can't have the same defensive impact you did in the past, and thus Russell would be a lesser player than he was today even if there were no 3-point line, but with the 3-point line, yikes. I say this all while saying I think Russell would probably be the best defender in today's game, but that only takes you so far.

This dilemma of what to do with the game changing, and different players' strong suits scaling different to the modern state of the art, is very hard to know what to do with. I'm not going to tell other people how they should choose to do it - I think each must decide for themselves - but it's something that holds Russell back here for me.

One more thing though:

It's not like Russell didn't clearly have limitations in his own time. By his own account, he lacked the fine motor coordination of the high school basketball stars around him, and he was nothing close to the best basketball player on his high school team and it really wasn't until he got obsessed with defense while playing on a traveling high school all-star team (which he got on because the more in-demand players from his high school weren't available) and proceeded to figure out a bunch of things he could do with his unprecedented length, agility, and leaping ability.

This to say that as impressive as what Russell did was, it's not like he was "the perfect player for his own period and I'm criticizing him for something utterly irrelevant to his time". He found a cheat code that people didn't realize existed before, which then ended up driving the game to focus more on outside shooting, which then naturally would reduce the cheat code's effectiveness today.

Make of all that what you will in terms of a GOAT list, but Russell's career should be understood first and foremost in terms of the new things he brought to the game, and the new things that then emerged in his wake.

Just saw this, but I 100% agree with you and this is how I've evaluated Russell for the past few years. Yes, he is the greatest defensive player ever, by a small but noticable margin, but there's no way in hell he would approach the impact he had in the 60s in any other era (except maybe the 70s?). Which to me does matter. How much, I'm not certain but enough to where I definitely don't have him as my GOAT even though he's still clearly top-10.

[Doctor MJ]

Curios why we don't just do Polls for this? I feel like a Poll would make it more clear who's the winner.

The object is to have discussions. Same reason we generally don't allow votes without reasoning. Polls take that to the extreme.

This, a thousand times, this. Nothing to learn from polls other than what opinions a bunch of pseudo-anonymous people hold. We learn from the hows and the whys that determine the whats.

[Doctor MJ]

Curry’s peak went 15th in the project 3 years ago. I find it a bit strange he’s getting this much traction for a top 5-6 spot.

I think the mistake was him being too low back then.

I disagree. I’ve always felt between 10-18 somewhere was appropriate. Should be interesting to see where Jokic and Giannis land though. Curry may have a few vocal supporters like usual, but even now I doubt he goes higher than 8th or 9th with the 10-15 range being more likely.

So one thing I think to make clear:

I might be the one who first brought up Curry in this discussion and I don't think I was involved during the last Peaks project.

Not saying that my opinion of Curry relative to other players has stayed perfectly still in the years since, nor that I expect to be able to shift Curry's placement here in some dramatic way, but definitely one part of what's going on here is that the voting base doesn't remain constant.

[f4p]

I could also point out times where public opinion / media seems to be wrong. Take the 2022 preseason predictions. 15/16 ESPN writers had KD's Nets making the conference finals, with 10/16 saying KD's Nets would make the finals.

I meant to respond to this. I certainly am not advocating we start listening to ESPN and NBA twitter. But I would have a hard time believing even the PC board got to the end of any season and said they still thought Curry was better than Lebron. It seems difficult to say he'd be above any healthy Kawhi season (People are voting for 2017 Steph but was he even better than 2017 Kawhi before Zaza took him out? The playoffs certainly say no.), and by 2018, you'd have Harden having arguments (no doubt in Harden's favor for 2019/20), then Giannis any season starting with 2019 and then Jokic by 2020 and now Doncic would have to be considered ahead. And yet so many of these guys can't get over Curry in plenty of these metrics.

[OhayoKD]

Okay, so consider the assumptions built into the perspective where "Degree of Difficulty" means what it means here.

You mean it is as: How strong your supporting cast is compared to other superstars who have won championships.

Which means you're likely looking at some of the guys who won championships simply because competition was weak that year - '03 Spurs, '06 Heat, '11 Mavs, etc - as if they accomplished something greater than those who actually led better teams.

I'm not saying this to say: So you're wrong!

But I do think it should be considered that not all basketball teams that earn the title "champion" are equally good at basketball , and you're saying you're unimpressed by the most valuable player on the best team in the history of basketball. (We can of course debate that claim, but whether it's true or not seems moot to your criticism. Obviously if another team is even better, then they surely had an equally easy time of things and thus a low Degree of Difficulty.

Do you realize how counter longer basketball history this is? Do you think that the NBA just came into existence and said "Hey, anyone want to play basketball for money?". No, the NBA is the END was the end product of decades of teams stealing player from each other teams and leagues stealing teams from other leagues...to say nothing of the league-wide colluding to get players into leagues or the barnstorming that dominated the game for large swaths of time plucking the talent they ran across in the towns they went to or players playing on a different team every night to make as much money as possible.

Things change once a league secures a monopoly on the best players and makes the fanbase feel there's some kind of morality in play to give their team a chance at winning the championship of that league, and certainly truly equal team achievement with unequal supporting help does say something about individual achievement...

but if you are specifically unimpressed when you view basketball elevated to the highest form (by competitive definition), I think you need to re-examine how you're processing what's happening out there on the wood.

The 11 mavs faced weak competition? They went 8-2 vs 55+ win teams before beating a heat team that was looking like the bulls for the first three rounds. I don't think "weak competitoin" works as a knock on the 11 mavs. They probably faced better competition than the warriors.

I think the problem with curry's 2017 is that the previous two years we saw great defenses completely tank his offense, the following year they were 3-2 down to a team similar to the spurs team that they didn't end up having to deal with, and the year after that curry wasn't playing like an mvp in the regular season and played poorly enough in the 2nd round that being on a normal contender probably gets him bounced. Ultimately the goal is to win a championship, not to win it by a million points, so currys' theoretical value as a "scalable" piece doesn't necceasrily make up for his demonstrated vulnerability when the deck isn't stacked.

If the warriors offense isn't nuked the previous two years by a defense anchored by a 30 year old wing+tristan thompson then maybe degree of difficulty doesn't matter. But as it is, when the degree of difficulty has increased cusrry hasn't been as good in the postseason and arguably those more difficult situations are more relevant to a player's capacity to win titles than the freak scenario that was 2017 where different players probably could have won if not as smoothly in curry's place.

Curry's competition here have all shown they can go from game 1 to 82 and from the first round to the finals without a signifcant drop-off in performance vs teams that aren't completely outclassed. And you can't really credit curry as the *reason, the warriors were outclassing everyone because they were not able to do that the previous two years.

Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '09 or '10 Lakers? I don't.
Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '12 or '13 Heat? I don't.
Do you think the '09 or '10 Lakers or '12 or '13 Heat would win titles today? I don't.

Re: "previous two years completely tank his offense". First off that's not true and something I've been trying to get people to understand recently.

People seem to have gotten the idea that they can look at raw ORtg numbers for teams in the playoffs and if those numbers are lower than the regular season, then they were "shut down", but that's not a reasonable way to look at things.

An essential part of judging a playoff offense that has deep playoff runs is to compare that team's ORtg to other team's ORtg against the same opponent. That alone doesn't tell the full story of course, but if you're not doing this, you haven't actually scratched the surface.

Leaving aside the Durant years when he played, this is the Warrior playoff track record in the 8 years of Kerr's time there:

2015 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2016 - 2 exception to bring up in a second.
2019 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2022 - 1 exception to bring up in a second.

What are those 3 exceptions:

in 2016, the Pistons had a higher ORtg against the Cavs than the Warriors did. However, the Pistons lost every game of the series, and in the regular season had a below average ORtg this year, just like they now have for the past 11 years (hell of a streak), so I don't think anyone should be wanting to argue that the Pistons were more impressive as a playoff offense than the Warriors.

In 2016, the Spurs had a higher ORtg against the Thunder than the Warriors did. Those Spurs were a 67-15 juggernaut that rightly should be seen as one of 4 champion level teams that, for example, would have destroyed the 2011 Mavs, so they are a serious threat...but the Spurs only have the higher ORtg because of a great Game 1. If you look at the ORtgs deeper in the series, it's the Warriors easily.

In 2022, the Nets had a higher ORtg against the Celtics than the Warriors did. Those Nets despite losing every game deserve offensive respect but it should be remembered that they played a Celtic team without Robert Williams. The Warriors actually had a better ORtg in the Williams-less minutes than the Nets did, and Curry had a higher ORtg than KD did in their respective Celtic series even ignoring the higher degree of difficulty of Williams.

So literally, the 3 exceptions we're talking about, not really really damning exceptions. By and large these past 8 years, when Curry's been playing in the playoffs, we've seen him lead offenses that are more impressive than any other contemporary offense could be expected to achieve in the same circumstances.

Now to be clear, none of that means that Curry necessarily has the edge over Magic or Bird, only that if you think that you've seen the Warrior offense fall apart again and again in the playoffs, you're just plain wrong. There have been struggles along the way and I don't mean to imply otherwise - the 2016 Cavs beat them fair and square first and foremost - but the narrative of the Warrior offense being actually-not-good in the playoffs is something that you only see if you don't look closely enough.

Why don't you think they could tho? The 10 lakers were taken to 6 by a weaker version of the okc side the mavs demolished. Miami were took a 60 win team to the cleaners before the mavs beat them. Don't you think this might be name-bias on your end? Idk if they beat modern teams, but they faced a historically difficult set of teams if you're just thinking relative to era and were pretty dominant.

As for the warriors. The warriors, dropped the most offensively against the cavs those two years. Not even the hawks, the raptors, or the bulls were as affected. I didn't bring up bird, specfically because he's got a worse track record of this(his team did way worse than jordan's bulls or magic's lakers vs the pistons and even reggie's pacers arguably held up better), but if you're comparing him to shaq/hakeem/kareem in their best years, i think that's significant.

It's also probably worth noting that them being "the greatest team of all time" isn't neccesarily even clear cut statistically in the playoffs or the regular seasons even though they effectivelly had three superstars, elite role players, and unprecedented spacing with their biggest threats(17 spurs/18 rockets) both being defanged due to injury with the warriors traling. Think the 72 bulls and 71 bucks both have comparable full strength ratings and in the playoffs paticularly, the 01 lakers and the 91 bulls compare well.

Also probably should account for draymond who posted better plus-minus stuff than curry and who the warriors have looked bad without, even with curry. I just don't think steph's 2017 statistical stuff neccesarily translate in more reasonable conditions.

[falcolombardi]

The 11 mavs faced weak competition? They went 8-2 vs 55+ win teams before beating a heat team that was looking like the bulls for the first three rounds. I don't think "weak competitoin" works as a knock on the 11 mavs. They probably faced better competition than the warriors.

I think the problem with curry's 2017 is that the previous two years we saw great defenses completely tank his offense, the following year they were 3-2 down to a team similar to the spurs team that they didn't end up having to deal with, and the year after that curry wasn't playing like an mvp in the regular season and played poorly enough in the 2nd round that being on a normal contender probably gets him bounced. Ultimately the goal is to win a championship, not to win it by a million points, so currys' theoretical value as a "scalable" piece doesn't necceasrily make up for his demonstrated vulnerability when the deck isn't stacked.

If the warriors offense isn't nuked the previous two years by a defense anchored by a 30 year old wing+tristan thompson then maybe degree of difficulty doesn't matter. But as it is, when the degree of difficulty has increased cusrry hasn't been as good in the postseason and arguably those more difficult situations are more relevant to a player's capacity to win titles than the freak scenario that was 2017 where different players probably could have won if not as smoothly in curry's place.

Curry's competition here have all shown they can go from game 1 to 82 and from the first round to the finals without a signifcant drop-off in performance vs teams that aren't completely outclassed. And you can't really credit curry as the *reason, the warriors were outclassing everyone because they were not able to do that the previous two years.

Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '09 or '10 Lakers? I don't.
Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '12 or '13 Heat? I don't.
Do you think the '09 or '10 Lakers or '12 or '13 Heat would win titles today? I don't.

Re: "previous two years completely tank his offense". First off that's not true and something I've been trying to get people to understand recently.

People seem to have gotten the idea that they can look at raw ORtg numbers for teams in the playoffs and if those numbers are lower than the regular season, then they were "shut down", but that's not a reasonable way to look at things.

An essential part of judging a playoff offense that has deep playoff runs is to compare that team's ORtg to other team's ORtg against the same opponent. That alone doesn't tell the full story of course, but if you're not doing this, you haven't actually scratched the surface.

Leaving aside the Durant years when he played, this is the Warrior playoff track record in the 8 years of Kerr's time there:

2015 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2016 - 2 exception to bring up in a second.
2019 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2022 - 1 exception to bring up in a second.

What are those 3 exceptions:

in 2016, the Pistons had a higher ORtg against the Cavs than the Warriors did. However, the Pistons lost every game of the series, and in the regular season had a below average ORtg this year, just like they now have for the past 11 years (hell of a streak), so I don't think anyone should be wanting to argue that the Pistons were more impressive as a playoff offense than the Warriors.

In 2016, the Spurs had a higher ORtg against the Thunder than the Warriors did. Those Spurs were a 67-15 juggernaut that rightly should be seen as one of 4 champion level teams that, for example, would have destroyed the 2011 Mavs, so they are a serious threat...but the Spurs only have the higher ORtg because of a great Game 1. If you look at the ORtgs deeper in the series, it's the Warriors easily.

In 2022, the Nets had a higher ORtg against the Celtics than the Warriors did. Those Nets despite losing every game deserve offensive respect but it should be remembered that they played a Celtic team without Robert Williams. The Warriors actually had a better ORtg in the Williams-less minutes than the Nets did, and Curry had a higher ORtg than KD did in their respective Celtic series even ignoring the higher degree of difficulty of Williams.

So literally, the 3 exceptions we're talking about, not really really damning exceptions. By and large these past 8 years, when Curry's been playing in the playoffs, we've seen him lead offenses that are more impressive than any other contemporary offense could be expected to achieve in the same circumstances.

Now to be clear, none of that means that Curry necessarily has the edge over Magic or Bird, only that if you think that you've seen the Warrior offense fall apart again and again in the playoffs, you're just plain wrong. There have been struggles along the way and I don't mean to imply otherwise - the 2016 Cavs beat them fair and square first and foremost - but the narrative of the Warrior offense being actually-not-good in the playoffs is something that you only see if you don't look closely enough.

Why don't you think they could tho? The 10 lakers were taken to 6 by a weaker version of the okc side the mavs demolished. Miami were took a 60 win team to the cleaners before the mavs beat them. Don't you think this might be name-bias on your end? Idk if they beat modern teams, but they faced a historically difficult set of teams if you're just thinking relative to era and were pretty dominant.

As for the warriors. The warriors, dropped the most offensively against the cavs those two years. Not even the hawks, the raptors, or the bulls were as affected. I didn't bring up bird, specfically because he's got a worse track record of this(his team did way worse than jordan's bulls or magic's lakers vs the pistons and even reggie's pacers arguably held up better), but if you're comparing him to shaq/hakeem/kareem in their best years, i think that's significant.

It's also probably worth noting that them being "the greatest team of all time" isn't neccesarily even clear cut statistically in the playoffs or the regular seasons even though they effectivelly had three superstars, elite role players, and unprecedented spacing with their biggest threats(17 spurs/18 rockets) both being defanged due to injury with the warriors traling. Think the 72 bulls and 71 bucks both have comparable full strength ratings and in the playoffs paticularly, the 01 lakers and the 91 bulls compare well.

Also probably should account for draymond who posted better plus-minus stuff than curry and who the warriors have looked bad without, even with curry. I just don't think steph's 2017 statistical stuff neccesarily translate in more reasonable conditions.

The 16 and 17 cavs are probably the mpst impressive offense of the 2010's, specially adjusted to talent (where they dont have as much as the 17-18 warriors but still matched and beat them in offense results by a small margin)

[OhayoKD]

Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '09 or '10 Lakers? I don't.
Do you think the '11 Mavs beat the '12 or '13 Heat? I don't.
Do you think the '09 or '10 Lakers or '12 or '13 Heat would win titles today? I don't.

Re: "previous two years completely tank his offense". First off that's not true and something I've been trying to get people to understand recently.

People seem to have gotten the idea that they can look at raw ORtg numbers for teams in the playoffs and if those numbers are lower than the regular season, then they were "shut down", but that's not a reasonable way to look at things.

An essential part of judging a playoff offense that has deep playoff runs is to compare that team's ORtg to other team's ORtg against the same opponent. That alone doesn't tell the full story of course, but if you're not doing this, you haven't actually scratched the surface.

Leaving aside the Durant years when he played, this is the Warrior playoff track record in the 8 years of Kerr's time there:

2015 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2016 - 2 exception to bring up in a second.
2019 - better ORtg than all others against all of their playoff opponents.
2022 - 1 exception to bring up in a second.

What are those 3 exceptions:

in 2016, the Pistons had a higher ORtg against the Cavs than the Warriors did. However, the Pistons lost every game of the series, and in the regular season had a below average ORtg this year, just like they now have for the past 11 years (hell of a streak), so I don't think anyone should be wanting to argue that the Pistons were more impressive as a playoff offense than the Warriors.

In 2016, the Spurs had a higher ORtg against the Thunder than the Warriors did. Those Spurs were a 67-15 juggernaut that rightly should be seen as one of 4 champion level teams that, for example, would have destroyed the 2011 Mavs, so they are a serious threat...but the Spurs only have the higher ORtg because of a great Game 1. If you look at the ORtgs deeper in the series, it's the Warriors easily.

In 2022, the Nets had a higher ORtg against the Celtics than the Warriors did. Those Nets despite losing every game deserve offensive respect but it should be remembered that they played a Celtic team without Robert Williams. The Warriors actually had a better ORtg in the Williams-less minutes than the Nets did, and Curry had a higher ORtg than KD did in their respective Celtic series even ignoring the higher degree of difficulty of Williams.

So literally, the 3 exceptions we're talking about, not really really damning exceptions. By and large these past 8 years, when Curry's been playing in the playoffs, we've seen him lead offenses that are more impressive than any other contemporary offense could be expected to achieve in the same circumstances.

Now to be clear, none of that means that Curry necessarily has the edge over Magic or Bird, only that if you think that you've seen the Warrior offense fall apart again and again in the playoffs, you're just plain wrong. There have been struggles along the way and I don't mean to imply otherwise - the 2016 Cavs beat them fair and square first and foremost - but the narrative of the Warrior offense being actually-not-good in the playoffs is something that you only see if you don't look closely enough.

Why don't you think they could tho? The 10 lakers were taken to 6 by a weaker version of the okc side the mavs demolished. Miami were took a 60 win team to the cleaners before the mavs beat them. Don't you think this might be name-bias on your end? Idk if they beat modern teams, but they faced a historically difficult set of teams if you're just thinking relative to era and were pretty dominant.

As for the warriors. The warriors, dropped the most offensively against the cavs those two years. Not even the hawks, the raptors, or the bulls were as affected. I didn't bring up bird, specfically because he's got a worse track record of this(his team did way worse than jordan's bulls or magic's lakers vs the pistons and even reggie's pacers arguably held up better), but if you're comparing him to shaq/hakeem/kareem in their best years, i think that's significant.

It's also probably worth noting that them being "the greatest team of all time" isn't neccesarily even clear cut statistically in the playoffs or the regular seasons even though they effectivelly had three superstars, elite role players, and unprecedented spacing with their biggest threats(17 spurs/18 rockets) both being defanged due to injury with the warriors traling. Think the 72 bulls and 71 bucks both have comparable full strength ratings and in the playoffs paticularly, the 01 lakers and the 91 bulls compare well.

Also probably should account for draymond who posted better plus-minus stuff than curry and who the warriors have looked bad without, even with curry. I just don't think steph's 2017 statistical stuff neccesarily translate in more reasonable conditions.

The 16 and 17 cavs are probably the mpst impressive offense of the 2010's, specially adjusted to talent (where they dont have as much as the 17-18 warriors but still matched and beat them in offense results by a small margin)

I was talking about the 15 and 16 cav's defense, not offense

[falcolombardi]

Why don't you think they could tho? The 10 lakers were taken to 6 by a weaker version of the okc side the mavs demolished. Miami were took a 60 win team to the cleaners before the mavs beat them. Don't you think this might be name-bias on your end? Idk if they beat modern teams, but they faced a historically difficult set of teams if you're just thinking relative to era and were pretty dominant.

As for the warriors. The warriors, dropped the most offensively against the cavs those two years. Not even the hawks, the raptors, or the bulls were as affected. I didn't bring up bird, specfically because he's got a worse track record of this(his team did way worse than jordan's bulls or magic's lakers vs the pistons and even reggie's pacers arguably held up better), but if you're comparing him to shaq/hakeem/kareem in their best years, i think that's significant.

It's also probably worth noting that them being "the greatest team of all time" isn't neccesarily even clear cut statistically in the playoffs or the regular seasons even though they effectivelly had three superstars, elite role players, and unprecedented spacing with their biggest threats(17 spurs/18 rockets) both being defanged due to injury with the warriors traling. Think the 72 bulls and 71 bucks both have comparable full strength ratings and in the playoffs paticularly, the 01 lakers and the 91 bulls compare well.

Also probably should account for draymond who posted better plus-minus stuff than curry and who the warriors have looked bad without, even with curry. I just don't think steph's 2017 statistical stuff neccesarily translate in more reasonable conditions.

The 16 and 17 cavs are probably the mpst impressive offense of the 2010's, specially adjusted to talent (where they dont have as much as the 17-18 warriors but still matched and beat them in offense results by a small margin)

I was talking about the 15 and 16 cav's defense, not offense

I was answering the post about curry creating the best offenses we have ever seen

By raw numbers that heavily tilt towards the modern game that may be true, but by raw numbers the 2020 mavs were the goat regular season offense in 2020 and 80's lakers would be a mediocre offense and most people dont approach it that way

By relative offense rating the curry and durant warriors were #2 of their own era despite being #1 in talent

[OhayoKD]

I don't really know what changed that people decide to pick Curry clearly ahead of someone like Magic, Bird or Oscar. I get it that some people underestimated his impact, but isn't that too big overreaction?

i mean bird's really just a worse version of curry with way less resilient postseason play. Idk why bird would have been ahead of curry in the first place.

He's a worse shooter than Curry, but I wouldn't call him a worse version of Curry. He was significantly better passer, post up player, rebounder, screen setter. His off-ball game was arguably just as good. He was likely a more impactful defender as well.

About resiliency, Curry isn't some kind of resilient monster himself. He struggled in a lot of postseason moments, it's not strictly about 2016. I think due to his great 2022 finals series, a lot of people forgot thay Curry wasn't always this top tier playoff performer.

It doesn't mean that he's better, but I think they were in similar tier.

Bird isn't a better screen-setter than curry. He also isn't a better defender. If anything he was a liability defensively. Teams would hunt him for layups and often succeed. Bird doesn't match curry in off-ball impact. A couple rebounds here and there doesn't make up for curry's greater range, much greater volume from that range, and how much more he moved off-the ball. Pair that with bird not even being a reliable ball handler and i don't see how they stack up.

Curry isn't a resilent playoff monster, but he's still more reliable than bird who was a perennial playoff faller.

[OhayoKD]

I don't really know what changed that people decide to pick Curry clearly ahead of someone like Magic, Bird or Oscar. I get it that some people underestimated his impact, but isn't that too big overreaction?

i mean bird's really just a worse version of curry with way less resilient postseason play. Idk why bird would have been ahead of curry in the first place.

Some might argue Bird's 5-year prime was better than Steph (and you could maybe even extend the stretch).

For example,

Larry Bird's 5-year Peak PS Bball Ref BPM-8.19 (10th All-time)

Larry Bird's 5-year Peak PS BACKPICKS BPM Rank-6th All-time



Steph's 5-year Peak PS Bball Ref BPM-7.83 (13th All-time)

Steph Curry's 5-year Peak PS Backpicks BPM Rank-14th All-Time


Some might also prefer Bird's playstyle because of just how good of a passer he was, as well as providing some of the floor-spacing that Curry does.

Also's Bird's defense was pretty underrated I think for some of his career by people today. For instance, Bird played on a Boston Celtics squad who in the PS from 80-82, had a -6.5 rDRTG, which is in the upper stratosphere historically. This is particularly noteworthy because Bird played in one of the most important defensive positions on the floor for much of the time at the PF position. In the 1980 and ’81 playoffs, Bird logged about 43 minutes per game next to Dave Cowens, Parish or Rick Robey had a really strong steal rate of 2.3 percent and block rate 1.5 percent. While yes, Kobe was clearly the more impactful on-ball defender, we know that off-ball defense and deterring shots at the rim in really any fashion is probably more valuable and Bird really had special instincts and off-ball awareness.

Now 86 Bird and beyond wasn't the same level of defender as earlier versions, but I suppose if you think they are in the same realm offensively, Bird's defensive edge could take him ahead. I mean Ben Taylor is super high on both and when push comes to shove put peak Bird over Peak Curry because of Bird's defense.

Do you have single year scores? I imagine bird would have a higher 4 year prime because curry's best playoff years aren't next to each other like bird's(15, 17, 19, 22) largely due to injuries(16/18). But maybe i'm being unfair. Though i don't take box-score stuff too seriously with curry largely because curry creates a bunch "without assists" or box-scre rep, while basically all of bird's creation is on-ball,

I definitely trust curry more on defense than bird. Warriors defenses have been better with curry than without for all his prime and curry has the agility to get out of bad matchups and positonal awareness to go where he needs to be. Bird is lackadasial positionally sometimes and doesn't have the speed to recover. Cavs and rockets tried to hunt him in their matchups but i don't think(and the matchup data supports this) they were paticularly successful. Meanwhile it thought pistons and rockets were able to get easy looks by pressuring bird pretty frequently.

I'm not very high on bird's offense when he's never led a atg playoff offense and his offenses tended to collapse in the playoff along with his scoring volume and effiency. He's also not all that impressive from a box perspective. His ast% is similar to curry despite curry creating signifcantly more off-ball and being a better scorer.

NVM that he barely was asked to handle the ball. Think reggie is a more sensible comparison than curry tbh, at least in the playoffs, but maybe the impact stuff says otherwise.