Your unpopular takes? (PC Board Edition)

[No-more-rings]

Steph ranged anywhere from slight negative to slight positive on defense depending on the year. Calling him a borderline all defense guard is silly.

[IdolW0rm]

Duncan's peak was in 2007.
Kobe was only the best shooting guard in the league for 3, maybe 4 seasons.
In retrospect, Jordan's break between 93 and 95 was the best legacy narrative driven move he could ever pull.

[Colbinii]

Yeah Steph has always been super underrated defensively, that's a good one

Not to this level though...

What do you peg the broad consensus on him defensively at? I think most people see him as a liability/negative defensively where I think he's a clear positive on that end - with the caveat that some years are stronger than others

Sure--but All-Defensive team is Top 4 guard. There is a big difference between neutral and/or positive and Top 4 defensive guard in the NBA

[parsnips33]

Not to this level though...

What do you peg the broad consensus on him defensively at? I think most people see him as a liability/negative defensively where I think he's a clear positive on that end - with the caveat that some years are stronger than others

Sure--but All-Defensive team is Top 4 guard. There is a big difference between neutral and/or positive and Top 4 defensive guard in the NBA

Ok that is fair.

I have him as a top 10 PG on that end for the majority of his prime

[Colbinii]

What do you peg the broad consensus on him defensively at? I think most people see him as a liability/negative defensively where I think he's a clear positive on that end - with the caveat that some years are stronger than others

Sure--but All-Defensive team is Top 4 guard. There is a big difference between neutral and/or positive and Top 4 defensive guard in the NBA

Ok that is fair.

I have him as a top 10 PG on that end for the majority of his prime

I agree.

The beginning of Curry's Prime included guys like Tony Allen, Jimmy Butler [Became a SF/PF later but his early Bulls years was listed a SG], Danny Green, George Hill, Ricky Rubio, Mike Conley, Thabo Sefolosha, Patrick Beverley, Rajon Rondo and Kyle Lowry. When looking at these guys [I am thinking 2013 and 2014 here--I think an argument could be made for Curry to squeeze into the Top 10 of guards and Top 5 Point Guards.

The middle of his prime [Let's say 2015-2019] includes guys like Tony Allen, Danny Green, Chris Paul, Marcus Smart, Jimmy Butler, Wesley Matthews, John Wall, Devin Harris, Eric Bledsoe, Jrue Holiday, Patrick Beverley, Ricky Rubio, Klay Thompson, Mike Conley, Victor Oladipo, KCP, Kyle Lowry. I could see him sneaking into the Top 10 PG [Especially if you put guys like Beverley at SG due to playing next to Harden].

Regardless, I think Curry is a better defender than mediocre or average--you aren't going to be on the floor as much as he is on a great defensive dynasty like the 2015-2023 Warriors and be a turn-style defensively. His IQ and size at the PG position are too big of an asset defensively to be a true negative. Late prime is where he really shines though, with added mass and even less time involved in thinking and more reactive.

[GSP]

Steph ranged anywhere from slight negative to slight positive on defense depending on the year. Calling him a borderline all defense guard is silly.

Ppl still struggle in separating the respective impacts of Steph and Draymond with how often their minutes have been tied together over the years. Very hard to separate them and they cover each others holes and weaknesses as perfectly as any duo ever has. I hope Draymond leaves and theyre on different teams next season. Lets see how "all defense" Steph looks then but OFC ppl would bolster a "hes just getting older" excuse when the reality would be he doesnt have the best defender and help defender of his era anymore to cover for him. Its extremely weird that great offensive players get credited for making limited offensive players look better than they are which is credible but the same consideration doesnt seem to be given for defensive stars making limited and mediocre defenders look better than they are. Klay and Iggy were also matching up with the best offensive guards during their time together so Steph always had the easiest perimeter defensive matchups possible like spotup 3&d player and there were still series and games players like Danny Green were torching and even posting him up

[parsnips33]

Steph ranged anywhere from slight negative to slight positive on defense depending on the year. Calling him a borderline all defense guard is silly.

Ppl still struggle in separating the respective impacts of Steph and Draymond with how often their minutes have been tied together over the years. Very hard to separate them and they cover each others holes and weaknesses as perfectly as any duo ever has. I hope Draymond leaves and theyre on different teams next season. Lets see how "all defense" Steph looks then but OFC ppl would bolster a "hes just getting older" excuse when the reality would be he doesnt have the best defender and help defender of his era anymore to cover for him. Klay and Iggy were also matching up with the best offensive guards during their time together so Steph always had the easiest perimeter defensive matchups possible like spotup 3&d player and there were still series and games players like Danny Green were torching and even posting him up

This is only really an issue if you don't watch the games. If you watch, you can see Steph doesn't get blown by very often, has fairly active hands (although can be a little over aggressive leading to foul trouble), rebounds very well for his position and is pretty strong for somebody his size, especially since ~2018. Really I think his best skill is he's so good at the hedge and recover - of course teams are going to target him defensively when 1) he's the smallest player on the floor and 2) the other options are Draymond, Iggy, or Klay. But by working so hard on the hedge and recover, Steph's able to either not give up the mismatch at all or at least force the offense to kill a lot of shot clock before they get their preferred matchup. Maybe not a super sexy skill, but it's effective and supports the team defense

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Dikembe Mutombo was a legit all-nba level player at his peak and reached top 10 in his best years.

Nate Thurmond was the best player on his team in 1967.

Brook Lopez turned himself into a great defensive player and he's not a product of Giannis/Bud system.

I thought putting Motumbo in your top 10 for some years would be normal.
I know some fans only value scoring but I thought those fans were in the minority.

[eminence]

Well, sounds like mine was actually unpopular, ya conformists

And yeah, I really am that high on him. I think he's got arguably the 2nd best off-ball defensive instincts among guards during his years (prime Danny G #1).

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Steph ranged anywhere from slight negative to slight positive on defense depending on the year. Calling him a borderline all defense guard is silly.

Ppl still struggle in separating the respective impacts of Steph and Draymond with how often their minutes have been tied together over the years. Very hard to separate them and they cover each others holes and weaknesses as perfectly as any duo ever has. I hope Draymond leaves and theyre on different teams next season. Lets see how "all defense" Steph looks then but OFC ppl would bolster a "hes just getting older" excuse when the reality would be he doesnt have the best defender and help defender of his era anymore to cover for him. Klay and Iggy were also matching up with the best offensive guards during their time together so Steph always had the easiest perimeter defensive matchups possible like spotup 3&d player and there were still series and games players like Danny Green were torching and even posting him up

This is only really an issue if you don't watch the games. If you watch, you can see Steph doesn't get blown by very often, has fairly active hands (although can be a little over aggressive leading to foul trouble), rebounds very well for his position and is pretty strong for somebody his size, especially since ~2018. Really I think his best skill is he's so good at the hedge and recover - of course teams are going to target him defensively when 1) he's the smallest player on the floor and 2) the other options are Draymond, Iggy, or Klay. But by working so hard on the hedge and recover, Steph's able to either not give up the mismatch at all or at least force the offense to kill a lot of shot clock before they get their preferred matchup. Maybe not a super sexy skill, but it's effective and supports the team defense

Steph has below average foot speed for an NBA starting point guard but he has perhaps the fastest brain speed. Curry is now defending almost perfectly except for his foot speed problem.

Because I am a Warriors fan I think I can separate Curry from Draymond and them from Kerr’s systems. But Curry and Draymond and Kerr’s systems are a great fit that are better together than they are separately.

Just because I have seen so much of Curry, Draymond and Kerr and have seen them without each other I think can separate them.
I have a bigger problem separating Stockton Malone and Sloan.

[OhayoKD]

Really hard for me to come up with any case supporting Curry as a top ten defensive guard.

Generally agree or sympathise with the rest though.

Eh. Doesn't seem that hard. Low-error rate+lotta steals. Good positional matchup data. GOOD Defensive rebounding for postion!!!! D-RAPM/D-PIPM go brrr.

Imagine alot of that is based on the supporting cast but

Top 10 guard in a high-end year doesn't seem crazy

None of that is an actual comparative argument or even based on anything you are bothering to quantify (apart from defensive rebounding). Right away I know his DPIPM, DLEBRON, and D-DPM has always hovered around neutral to mild positive outside of 2015, and that he gets worse in the postseason. His D-RAPM is better — but he tends to play with good defensive support and have rough backups — yet again without a comparative basis (or one which acknowledges that Marcus Smart having a lower DRAPM does not mean Curry is a better defender than Smart…) this is contributing nothing to the conversation.

How many guards generally grade out as more than "mild positive" in these metrics? 2022 LEBRON data was what showed up when I googled the metric and all but 10 guards seem to be <+1 defensive impact. For whatever reason thybuille is listed as an sg(and a stretch big simultaneously), so really 9.

As for the granular stuff. Iirc ben said he had low-error rates somewhere. The man defender thing is here:

Watch on YouTube

He actually says "every position below it's average against point guards" which I guess is more impressive?(Though that's might just be Curry funneling guys into bigger guys)

Also collects his fair share of steals which is probably a positive if he's not giving up much to get them.

[AEnigma]

Eh. Doesn't seem that hard. Low-error rate+lotta steals. Good positional matchup data. GOOD Defensive rebounding for postion!!!! D-RAPM/D-PIPM go brrr.

Imagine alot of that is based on the supporting cast but

Top 10 guard in a high-end year doesn't seem crazy

None of that is an actual comparative argument or even based on anything you are bothering to quantify (apart from defensive rebounding). Right away I know his DPIPM, DLEBRON, and D-DPM has always hovered around neutral to mild positive outside of 2015, and that he gets worse in the postseason. His D-RAPM is better — but he tends to play with good defensive support and have rough backups — yet again without a comparative basis (or one which acknowledges that Marcus Smart having a lower DRAPM does not mean Curry is a better defender than Smart…) this is contributing nothing to the conversation.

How many guards generally grade out as more than "mild positive" in these metrics? 2022 LEBRON data was what showed up when I googled the metric and all but 10 guards seem to be <+1 defensive impact. For whatever reason thybuille is listed as an sg(and a stretch big simultaneously), so really 9.

As for the granular stuff. Iirc ben said he had low-error rates somewhere. The man defender thing is here:
He actually says "every position below it's average against point guards" which I guess is more impressive?(Though that's might just be Curry funneling guys into bigger guys)

Also collects his fair share of steals which is probably a positive if he's not giving up much to get them.

Why do you insist on doubling down even as you continue to have nothing real to offer.

Matisse is a shooting guard. Both his all-defensive selections have been at shooting guard. Mikal Bridges was an all-defensive shooting guard last year. Jimmy Butler was an all-defensive shooting guard in 2021. This is his competition. If you do not know the definitions of these terms, check.

LEBRON is freely accessible on the bball-index page. We can even ignore shooting guards and pretend that point guards are guaranteed a spot on the all-defensive teams, just for the sake of argument. Setting a minutes cutoff at 1600, Curry was 9th among 31 qualified point guards in 2022, at 0.4. 15th out of 26 in 2021 (-0.6). 13th out of 35 in 2019 (0.1). 27th of 35 in 2018 (-0.7). 6th out of 35 in 2017 (0.4). 15th out of 39 in 2016 (0). The aforementioned outlier 3rd in 2015 among qualified point guards (1). 10th out of 39 in 2014 (0.7). 11th out of 33 in 2013 (-0.1).

Again, if you do not know something, you are always free to stay quiet rather than speculate emptily and randomly.

[f4p]

On average, james harden was slightly better than steph curry in their 3 head to head playoff matchups.

[Texas Chuck]

portability just isn't nearly as important or valuable as its been made out to be here. And Dirk is more portable than KG despite never changing teams. I think there is a real ignorance of just how much the roster churned around Dirk and how it didn't matter, he was making any combo a really good team.

That's unpopular.

[rk2023]

portability just isn't nearly as important or valuable as its been made out to be here. And Dirk is more portable than KG despite never changing teams. I think there is a real ignorance of just how much the roster churned around Dirk and how it didn't matter, he was making any combo a really good team.

That's unpopular.

Could you elaborate on the Dirk-KG comparison? Other than that, I fully agree. Like a lot of people, I am high on Garnett’s portability due to his defense fitting in every situation possible even if there are more real-lived concerns with him being a team’s first offensive option (in contrast to Dirk whose portability I still very much like).

[ronnymac2]

1. Moses Malone would outplay every big man ever in a playoff series except perhaps Bill Russell. Malone might outplay everybody period regardless of position.

2. Jason Kidd is a top 5 passer/playmaker of all-time, on the level of Magic, Bird, and Nash. To add more unpopularity/controversy, Kidd was a great offensive player.

3. From number 1 to number 450, the 2023 NBA has the greatest collection of talent the league - the sport - has ever seen, but that talent gets wasted to an extent and molded poorly in part due to a misuse of analytics in the Optimization Era. This mainly affects the NBA's middle and lower class, who are mostly interchangeable mediocrities at this point. There are less team constructs with a unique flavor. This isn't a good thing in my opinion from a competitive standpoint, and it's not good for popularity of the league. Which brings me to opinion number 4...

4. Popularity matters. Drawing fans in and making people care about what you do outside of the 48 minutes of competition matters. Every "Real GM" and front office would agree, but I doubt most on this board would. And I get it, because at heart, I enjoy being a purist and analyzing simply who's better, who's best. But if we like and enjoy the game, we should want to see if grow. That's why I actually like narrative-driven awards and a Hall of Fame that is not super strict about who it inducts.

5. Being a 3-level scorer isn't about leveraging an elite jumper to get into the mid-range or the paint. Being a 3-level scorer involves offensive rebounding and a post game being included in your repertoire. I like James Harden and think that from 2010-2020, only a GSW or LeBron was better from the standpoint of health, consistency, quality of on-court play, drawing power, etc, so this isn't me just putting Harden down. But Harden has no post game, and it has hurt his resiliency in the playoffs.

I literally don't remember seeing Harden, Durant, or Curry ever grab an offensive rebound. I'm sure if I hop on bball-ref I'll see OREB with a number greater than 0, and if somebody ran in this thread to correct me, I'd believe them. I'm simply reporting that I don't recall any of them grabbing an offensive rebound. I recognize that this is partially a subjective style preference.

[f4p]

Rockets were losing to the Warriors in 2018 with or without the CP3 injury

Rockets beat the Warriors 8/10 times with the CP3 injury

Rockets wins were pretty much all eked out by <5 points, Warriors wins were all blowouts

They were a great team, but they were lucky to even push it to 7 games

lol, what a straight up lie.

game 3 that the warriors won in a blowout. with 5:11 to go, all of the warriors stars came out of the game. warriors leading by...29.

game 2 that the rockets won in a blowout? with 5:18 to go, all of the warriors stars came out of the game. rockets leading by...28.

wow 7 seconds and 1 point difference between the 2 games.

game 1 was a 7 point game with 4 minutes left and games 4 and 5 obviously finished within 5 points.

warriors fans love to tell the tale of games 2 and 3 being so different because the scrubs came in and won the rest of game 3 by 12 points in only 5 minutes and in game 2 the bench guys finished on a 6-0 run over the last 37 seconds (i'm sure ryan anderson was really d'ing up big time in a 28 point game with 30 seconds left). truth is they were basically identical blowouts with the stars in the game.

difference in the first 5 games in non-garbage time? 1.4 ppg. in other words, super close and one team won 2 of the 3 coinflip games and was up 3-2, kind of like a lot of playoff series. close just like the 2018 regular season, 2019 regular season, and 2019 playoff series.

[f4p]

5. Being a 3-level scorer isn't about leveraging an elite jumper to get into the mid-range or the paint. Being a 3-level scorer involves offensive rebounding and a post game being included in your repertoire. I like James Harden and think that from 2010-2020, only a GSW or LeBron was better from the standpoint of health, consistency, quality of on-court play, drawing power, etc, so this isn't me just putting Harden down. But Harden has no post game, and it has hurt his resiliency in the playoffs.

where would harden get a post game, though? he's not tall at all for a shooting guard (undersized by height), post ups require standing reach and he's usually guarded by taller players (because shorter ones can't match his strength), and finishing amongst the trees has never been his strong suit, even on drives. and he's been as resilient as KD, steph, dame and others like him. though they don't have post games either, i guess.

I literally don't remember seeing Harden, Durant, or Curry ever grab an offensive rebound. I'm sure if I hop on bball-ref I'll see OREB with a number greater than 0, and if somebody ran in this thread to correct me, I'd believe them. I'm simply reporting that I don't recall any of them grabbing an offensive rebound. I recognize that this is partially a subjective style preference.

hmm, looking it up, durant is actually kind of shockingly low for how tall he is. he's actually below both harden and steph per game over the last decade or so and hasn't been above 0.5 OREB per game since 2017. obviously this era focuses on getting back on defense and they are all on the perimeter, but it's almost hard to be 7 feet tall and not grab half an offensive rebound per game.

[frica]

Homebias among refs is currently the #1 biggest problem in the NBA.

[70sFan]

Another hot takes galore:

1. Sidney Moncrief isn't a candidate for the best SG defender ever.
2. Shaq wasn't elite defender in 2000.
3. Jerry West with better durability would be a top 10 player ever and he's close to Jordan peak-wise.
4. Bill Russell would be a superstar today.
5. Offensive rebounding is still extremely valuable today.
6. Moses Malone was a better offensive player than Hakeem.
7. Defense still wins titles.