Is Ben juicing the creation rates of Curry/Bird/MJ types?

[oaktownwarriors87]

Something that's occured to me lately when consuming some of Ben's content is that it appears he's allowing certain biases towards specific playstyles (that seem to fall in line with his preferred brand of basketball) affect his analysis of various players' games/impacts.

So this made me want to look back at some of his analysis videos and it's becoming more apparent to me that he's subconsciously allowing his preference for certain playstyles to overrate the impact of various actions on the floor.

He doesn't have any creation breakdowns for Bird or MJ that I can find, but there's a few examples in these Curry clips that make it easy to see his preference for specific actions cause him to overstate the creation produced by these off-ball scorer archetypal players. Some of these are just low IQ defensive breakdowns where Curry is scoring full creation credits on.

https://youtu.be/Qq-ewGMk73A?t=223

The first clip sees Ben giving Curry a creation credit on this fastbreak where it smacks more of poor defense from Garland considering he had Rubio a few steps behind them to pick up Curry on the weakside.

https://youtu.be/Qq-ewGMk73A?t=307

This next credit is a stretch at best, and straight up disingenuous at worst. This is just straight up basic Warriors split action where JTA just catches Garland (not the most heady defender) napping and slips the screen for an open back cut. To credit Curry with "creating" this play is absolutely wild to me

https://youtu.be/JCks-bQbn1A?t=108

This play is also lazy, Curry whiffs on the screen and Lowry simply commits a fundamental mistake trying to go through on the high side of a backscreen. Plays like this make me wonder if Ben is going out of his way to overthink basketball here when a much simpler explanation suffices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=296&v=JCks-bQbn1A&feature=youtu.be?t=318

Here we see Pascal simply loses his place in the scheme here. Curry was able to penetrate, but no true breakdown was created directly from his action as the Raptors directly recovered on the strong side. Pascal is just drifting on the weakside low block and not sticking to the scheme where he should be back up at the elbow once the action on his side was stifled. Not sure why Curry is being credited here with a shot creation.

https://youtu.be/GuP6-puSfRs?t=131

This one is outrageously egregious. Curry doesn't create much of an advantage at all here, he just blows by Love on the switch. And Ben's analysis is completely wrong here which makes me question whether he's so preoccupied with trying to funnel creation assists to Curry that he completely rewrites what actually occurred on the floor. According to him, Curry's PNR pulls the big out of the paint which opens up the wide open layup, when really Draymond is the star of this play. The paint was still occupied by LeBron but Draymond just wrestles him (90s basketball enjoyers in shambles watching this) and boxes him out of the play. Don't see where Curry can be credited with this other than just giving KD the ball and watching Draymond illegally clear the help defender.

https://youtu.be/GuP6-puSfRs?t=144

This credit is just as weird, given it was just JR Smith coming over for no reason to double on a FAST BREAK while Curry is already covered by LeBron. This isn't even an example of Curry's gravity in my mind because no one watching this is thinking "damn LeBron needs to get bailed out because Chef Curry is about to fry him in isolation" it's just JR Smith being JR Smith, and why LeBron freaks out on him after lol.

Overall man, it really makes you question Ben's breakdowns in some of these plays; which kinda casts doubt on whether he has suffered from similar biased analysis in regards to creation within other players in this archetype.

1st They try to trap Curry on the logo and it leads to an open 3 for Bjelica.
2nd Garland gets caught looking for a Curry screen that never happens. Layup for JTA.
3d Danny Green allows the in-bounder to get a layup because he's holding onto Curry. He's supposed to switch and doesn't.
4th Curry is being credited because they are play box and 1.
5th KD is was given 1v1 with Korver and an open lane. This one is questionable, but KD almost always received far less defensive attention than Curry. The defensive pressure being on Curry and not KD is the point being driven.
6th Curry gets double team and KD is left open for a layup

Sounds like your complaint is that it's just bad defense. Well, it's bad defense because the players are overcompensating for Curry. That's what "gravity" does. Every single clip doesn't need to be against an elite defender.

Curry does more work on and off the ball than just about any player ever. That makes him fun to watch and breakdown. He's a one man content farm for Ben. Easy pickins. There's nothing wrong with that.

[parsnips33]

Having finally watched some of these clips, none of these really seem like too big of a stretch? Doesn't it seem kinda natural that defenders would make more mistakes guarding Curry centric actions because he's uniquely good off-ball compared to other high level scorers? That is, if you have your standard defensive principals you use against 95% of top scorers/teams and a special set of "Curry Rules" when it comes to the Warriors, you'll have a lot more reps/muscle memory for the standard "on-ball scorer" package than the more situational alternative?

Maybe this type of advantage gets mitigated deeper into a playoff series as teams can focus on just the opponent in front of them and get to sort of get into rhythm defensively so to speak by playing the same opponent over and over.

[Red Beast]

Having finally watched some of these clips, none of these really seem like too big of a stretch? Doesn't it seem kinda natural that defenders would make more mistakes guarding Curry centric actions because he's uniquely good off-ball compared to other high level scorers? That is, if you have your standard defensive principals you use against 95% of top scorers/teams and a special set of "Curry Rules" when it comes to the Warriors, you'll have a lot more reps/muscle memory for the standard "on-ball scorer" package than the more situational alternative?

Maybe this type of advantage gets mitigated deeper into a playoff series as teams can focus on just the opponent in front of them and get to sort of get into rhythm defensively so to speak by playing the same opponent over and over.

The issue I have, is that to establish that they are "Curry Rules" you would have to compare the plays in question to a whole lot of other similar plays not involving Curry. To my mind, I have seen the type of breakdowns shown on many occasions with lots of other players. Have they all been caused by someone's gravity? It is reasonable to assume that Curry does create extra gravity as he must be accounted for at all times. This, however, does not mean that every breakdown is caused by said gravity. Some are just breakdowns. The danger is if you go searching for breakdowns that may be caused by gravity, you will find them. I'm not saying that Ben has determined the solution and tried to find a way to prove it, but it can be seen that way.

[oaktownwarriors87]

Having finally watched some of these clips, none of these really seem like too big of a stretch? Doesn't it seem kinda natural that defenders would make more mistakes guarding Curry centric actions because he's uniquely good off-ball compared to other high level scorers? That is, if you have your standard defensive principals you use against 95% of top scorers/teams and a special set of "Curry Rules" when it comes to the Warriors, you'll have a lot more reps/muscle memory for the standard "on-ball scorer" package than the more situational alternative?

Maybe this type of advantage gets mitigated deeper into a playoff series as teams can focus on just the opponent in front of them and get to sort of get into rhythm defensively so to speak by playing the same opponent over and over.

The issue I have, is that to establish that they are "Curry Rules" you would have to compare the plays in question to a whole lot of other similar plays not involving Curry. To my mind, I have seen the type of breakdowns shown on many occasions with lots of other players. Have they all been caused by someone's gravity? It is reasonable to assume that Curry does create extra gravity as he must be accounted for at all times. This, however, does not mean that every breakdown is caused by said gravity. Some are just breakdowns. The danger is if you go searching for breakdowns that may be caused by gravity, you will find them. I'm not saying that Ben has determined the solution and tried to find a way to prove it, but it can be seen that way.

Please. You said "some are just breakdowns". They are double teaming Curry or the defender is sagging off towards Curry in every play OP complained about. Curry is directly involved in every breakdown. Dismissing it by calling it "just a breakdown" is insulting.

And of course "gravity" isn't unique to Curry. He's just so dangerous from anywhere on the floor (and works so hard on and off the ball) that his gravity is apparent in just about every play.

This is like if someone came up with a Magic Johnson passing compilation and all the hater complaining that other players make good passes too, or that sometimes his teammates are just making good shots.

Sure, you can find other players making great passes. Just not at the same quality and volume as Magic. That's why Curry is a one man content farm for Ben.

We can't say he makes these videos out of bias. The most reasonable answer is that Curry is the easiest person to make these about because of the quality of plays, volume of plays, and the number of high profile games.

If he starts comparing Curry's passing to Magics passing you know he has a problem.

[SNPA]

Being great and needing the ball < Being great and not needing the ball

At the risk of parachuting in here again, Ben might not be juicing anything. An off ball view is defensible and doesn’t require juicing to make the case.

IMO it is easier to defend against on ball players. They literally need the ball, you know where they are at, they are the focal point…once they have the ball they are dangerous.

Off ball players are more problematic (non-old school centers) because a defense has to always worry about them if they have the ball or not. Just standing on the court those guys are great, and warping a defense…meanwhile there is another guy with the ball. It’s more complicated to defend.

[PaulieWal]

Perhaps someone in the future can re-create this thread; this current iteration is being closed due to various aggressive posts which the PC Board team is not interested in cleaning up at this point