RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #24 (Stephen Curry)

[No-more-rings]

I think the "what-if" game is especially weird to play with Wade because it can so easily cut the other way in terms of injuries (as with someone like Chris Paul).

What-if Wade didn't hurt his rib in Game 5 against the Pistons in 05, where he had an otherwise dominant series and where the Heat were up 3-2 on the Pistons team that took the Spurs to 7 in the finals?

What-if Wade didn't dislocate his shoulder in 07 when he looked like the best player in basketball for the first half of the season coming off his finals MVP? This one seems particularly relevant because Wade made clear that his finals MVP performance wasn't just some fluke hot streak.

I get it that longevity is a big factor here and I feel like I've read someone bring up that his "fall down 7 get up 8" style (man did I love that commercial though!) likely made him more injury prone, which I think is fair.

One more what if, what if Lebron doesn't have the worst series of his career against Dallas? Wade was making a strong push for FMVP until Lebron completely shrunk. He could easily end up with 4 rings and 2 FMVPS in a what if universe.

But "winning bias!, it doesn't matter!"

What ifs can be said for all players. So going down that road isn't getting us anywhere.

[sansterre]

Those are all fair points.

But implicit in your post (actually, fairly explicit) is the thesis "I am looking for Championship-level #1 option on offense, and Wade fits the bill".

If that is the heuristic we're using then fine, Wade is a good fit (though Curry's a better fit).

And my position is simply:

There is simply way, way, way more to players than who can be the highest load player on an offense that happens to win a championship.

But how many can perform the way Wade did? The list is undeniably limited at this point.

I feel like your rebuttal is basically: "Yeah yeah, we know all about winning bias and the desire to look at things besides scoring. That said, here's a guy that scored and won, so we obviously know the he's one of the best available."

You can't seem to comprehend for some reason that Wade does way more than just score at a high level. He typically rated out near the top of the league in impact metrics, and in some cases like 06 rated 1st in RAPM. If you're going to say that Wade's scoring doesn't mean his overall impact was high, then you'd be wrong obviously.

And your point about Wade saving them down 0-2 is cognitively weird to me. What the heck was Wade doing in the first two games? How is it that the Heat find themselves down by two games (and it has nothing to do with him) and suddenly he hits the jets and saves the day, but only gets credit for those games, not blame for the first two? Isn't that blatant winning bias?

So a player isn't allowed to have a few bad games? Lebron's 2016 finals gets propped up as the goat series by a lot of people, while they ignore how he underpeformed in the first 4 games to go down 3-1.

I'm not saying Wade's series was that kind of level, but we're comparing him to guys in the top 25 and 30, not goat guys.

I'm just saying, fall out of bed, scratch yourself, and without any effort you can come up with the "Wade was great" at the intersection of:

1) He scored a lot of points
2) He used a lot of possessions
3) His team won a championship while he was the #1 scoring option

All of the above three points are true. I'm just saying that they *scream* cognitive bias.

You still haven't shown how this isn't a good thing lol. Funny that scoring a ton of points and using a lot of possessions is exactly what Harden does, and you have no problem voting Harden ahead? To me that sounds like cognitive bias, because I'm sure your response if you have one will be something like "Harden shoots 3zzz, and leads great ORTGzz".

And given that many people vote consistent with that heuristic, there is value to having it balanced out with the opposite. Because #1 scoring options that happened to win championships tend to be overrated on these boards (just like they're overrated everywhere) which makes players that *didn't* win a championship and also had lots of non-scoring skills to offer become underrated. And since the goal of this exercise (I infer) isn't "which list is the most consistent with our knee-jerk heuristics?" but instead "which players were actually the most valuable?" there may be value to having somebody who says "Hey, this player has all the signals of value, but none of the cognitive-bias advantages that lead to him getting attention, isn't it possible that this guy is underrated?"

I hope you'll forgive me, but when I suggest that Drexler may be underrated because he wasn't a #1 scoring option on a championship team, and your counter is "but he wasn't a #1 scoring option on a championship team" . . . you're kind of making my point for me.

So basically you're saying that being a not so good 1st offensive option is better than a good one. Got it.

Forgive me for being so frighteningly unclear.

Here is how I have experienced these posts:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: I guess I'd argue that Wade is favored by every cognitive bias in the book (while Drexler is the opposite) so we should be cautious whenever our unconscious reaction between the two is "Wade is obviously better and everyone knows it".

How is how it seems that my posts are being experienced:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: Scoring is garbage, championships are garbage, first options are garbage and peaks are garbage. Also your mom is ugly.

I really am not trying to take any of these extreme positions. I'm just trying to say that many arguments for Wade and Drexler rely on a lot of these cognitive biases in their reasoning (but in opposite directions) and that should make us more cautious, not more confident, in appraising their value.

[Im Your Father]

Those are all fair points.

But implicit in your post (actually, fairly explicit) is the thesis "I am looking for Championship-level #1 option on offense, and Wade fits the bill".

If that is the heuristic we're using then fine, Wade is a good fit (though Curry's a better fit).

And my position is simply:

There is simply way, way, way more to players than who can be the highest load player on an offense that happens to win a championship.

But how many can perform the way Wade did? The list is undeniably limited at this point.

I feel like your rebuttal is basically: "Yeah yeah, we know all about winning bias and the desire to look at things besides scoring. That said, here's a guy that scored and won, so we obviously know the he's one of the best available."

You can't seem to comprehend for some reason that Wade does way more than just score at a high level. He typically rated out near the top of the league in impact metrics, and in some cases like 06 rated 1st in RAPM. If you're going to say that Wade's scoring doesn't mean his overall impact was high, then you'd be wrong obviously.

And your point about Wade saving them down 0-2 is cognitively weird to me. What the heck was Wade doing in the first two games? How is it that the Heat find themselves down by two games (and it has nothing to do with him) and suddenly he hits the jets and saves the day, but only gets credit for those games, not blame for the first two? Isn't that blatant winning bias?

So a player isn't allowed to have a few bad games? Lebron's 2016 finals gets propped up as the goat series by a lot of people, while they ignore how he underpeformed in the first 4 games to go down 3-1.

I'm not saying Wade's series was that kind of level, but we're comparing him to guys in the top 25 and 30, not goat guys.

I'm just saying, fall out of bed, scratch yourself, and without any effort you can come up with the "Wade was great" at the intersection of:

1) He scored a lot of points
2) He used a lot of possessions
3) His team won a championship while he was the #1 scoring option

All of the above three points are true. I'm just saying that they *scream* cognitive bias.

You still haven't shown how this isn't a good thing lol. Funny that scoring a ton of points and using a lot of possessions is exactly what Harden does, and you have no problem voting Harden ahead? To me that sounds like cognitive bias, because I'm sure your response if you have one will be something like "Harden shoots 3zzz, and leads great ORTGzz".

And given that many people vote consistent with that heuristic, there is value to having it balanced out with the opposite. Because #1 scoring options that happened to win championships tend to be overrated on these boards (just like they're overrated everywhere) which makes players that *didn't* win a championship and also had lots of non-scoring skills to offer become underrated. And since the goal of this exercise (I infer) isn't "which list is the most consistent with our knee-jerk heuristics?" but instead "which players were actually the most valuable?" there may be value to having somebody who says "Hey, this player has all the signals of value, but none of the cognitive-bias advantages that lead to him getting attention, isn't it possible that this guy is underrated?"

I hope you'll forgive me, but when I suggest that Drexler may be underrated because he wasn't a #1 scoring option on a championship team, and your counter is "but he wasn't a #1 scoring option on a championship team" . . . you're kind of making my point for me.

So basically you're saying that being a not so good 1st offensive option is better than a good one. Got it.

Forgive me for being so frighteningly unclear.

Here is how I have experienced these posts:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: I guess I'd argue that Wade is favored by every cognitive bias in the book (while Drexler is the opposite) so we should be cautious whenever our unconscious reaction between the two is "Wade is obviously better and everyone knows it".

How is how it seems that my posts are being experienced:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: Scoring is garbage, championships are garbage, first options are garbage and peaks are garbage. Also your mom is ugly.

I really am not trying to take any of these extreme positions. I'm just trying to say that many arguments for Wade and Drexler rely on a lot of these cognitive biases in their reasoning (but in opposite directions) and that should make us more cautious, not more confident, in appraising their value.

I take your point, but it just seems like you are throwing the baby out with the bath water a bit when trying to adjust for cognitive bias.

I suppose what I take objection to is the implication that Wade "just happened" to win one and maybe I'm reading your tone incorrectly. But it feels to me like that tantamount to coming close to chalking up a GOAT level performance on the highest stage (and in fact an all-time level ECF as well) to random variance. Of course he deserves blame for going 0-2 as much as he deserves credit for them winning 4 in a row, but my point was more that he personally came up big in big moments. I brought up 07 in particular because in my mind it makes very clear that he was capable of carrying on his dominating finals performance.

It seemed to me that you were suggesting that legacy wise the only thing separating Wade from the pack of all-stars (i.e. Drexler) is a fortunate ring in 06. But to me, Wade is a a couple of extremely untimely injuries and an all-time terrible performance from Lebron against Dallas from being much higher on this list.

I also think you are taking a pretty uncharitable reading of what I was going for with the championship option thing. My point with the #1 option thing (which perhaps I didn't really articulate well) was largely that Wade has a skillset that I am confident in trying to build a contender level team around in a way that I can't say about many people left in this Project (and definitely not Drexler). In my mind wade "fits the bill" as a championship #1 option because of his actual talent, not merely because he actually won one in 2006.

Drexler was spectacular in transition but in the playoffs in the half-court I'm not particularly fond of relying heavily on a guard who is neither a great ball handler nor a great shooter.

Wade on the other hand does have the handles to be your lead guard and the vision to be your primary playmaker in the half court. Wade is also one of the few slashers who the "build a wall" defense isn't particularly effective against because he was simply so lightning quick and slippery that he was able to find his way to the basket anyway. In his best years he was also a reliable mid range shooter who get those looks basically any time and I'm not particularly convinced that prime Drexler was any meaningfully better as a jump shooter.

Drexler has an excellent off-ball game, but so does Wade who was an outstanding cutter throughout his career (and I think this goes a long way to differentiate him from the high usage archetype).

Maybe you disagree, but I'm also substantially higher on Wade's defense than Drexler's.

In my mind looking at their actual games (in addition to the ultimate results), we have no reason to think that Drexler is a superior player in either a primary or secondary role than Wade.

Seeing as you're so empirically focused (which to be clear, I appreciate), I think it's also worth noting that RAPM is extremely kind to Wade in his prime and backs up what I believe to be the relatively popular perception that he was likely the league's second best player from 2009-2011. We don't have that data available for Drexler but I am genuinely curious, looking at his game do you think that he was ever having anything approaching that level of impact?

[No-more-rings]

Those are all fair points.

But implicit in your post (actually, fairly explicit) is the thesis "I am looking for Championship-level #1 option on offense, and Wade fits the bill".

If that is the heuristic we're using then fine, Wade is a good fit (though Curry's a better fit).

And my position is simply:

There is simply way, way, way more to players than who can be the highest load player on an offense that happens to win a championship.

But how many can perform the way Wade did? The list is undeniably limited at this point.

I feel like your rebuttal is basically: "Yeah yeah, we know all about winning bias and the desire to look at things besides scoring. That said, here's a guy that scored and won, so we obviously know the he's one of the best available."

You can't seem to comprehend for some reason that Wade does way more than just score at a high level. He typically rated out near the top of the league in impact metrics, and in some cases like 06 rated 1st in RAPM. If you're going to say that Wade's scoring doesn't mean his overall impact was high, then you'd be wrong obviously.

And your point about Wade saving them down 0-2 is cognitively weird to me. What the heck was Wade doing in the first two games? How is it that the Heat find themselves down by two games (and it has nothing to do with him) and suddenly he hits the jets and saves the day, but only gets credit for those games, not blame for the first two? Isn't that blatant winning bias?

So a player isn't allowed to have a few bad games? Lebron's 2016 finals gets propped up as the goat series by a lot of people, while they ignore how he underpeformed in the first 4 games to go down 3-1.

I'm not saying Wade's series was that kind of level, but we're comparing him to guys in the top 25 and 30, not goat guys.

I'm just saying, fall out of bed, scratch yourself, and without any effort you can come up with the "Wade was great" at the intersection of:

1) He scored a lot of points
2) He used a lot of possessions
3) His team won a championship while he was the #1 scoring option

All of the above three points are true. I'm just saying that they *scream* cognitive bias.

You still haven't shown how this isn't a good thing lol. Funny that scoring a ton of points and using a lot of possessions is exactly what Harden does, and you have no problem voting Harden ahead? To me that sounds like cognitive bias, because I'm sure your response if you have one will be something like "Harden shoots 3zzz, and leads great ORTGzz".

And given that many people vote consistent with that heuristic, there is value to having it balanced out with the opposite. Because #1 scoring options that happened to win championships tend to be overrated on these boards (just like they're overrated everywhere) which makes players that *didn't* win a championship and also had lots of non-scoring skills to offer become underrated. And since the goal of this exercise (I infer) isn't "which list is the most consistent with our knee-jerk heuristics?" but instead "which players were actually the most valuable?" there may be value to having somebody who says "Hey, this player has all the signals of value, but none of the cognitive-bias advantages that lead to him getting attention, isn't it possible that this guy is underrated?"

I hope you'll forgive me, but when I suggest that Drexler may be underrated because he wasn't a #1 scoring option on a championship team, and your counter is "but he wasn't a #1 scoring option on a championship team" . . . you're kind of making my point for me.

So basically you're saying that being a not so good 1st offensive option is better than a good one. Got it.

Forgive me for being so frighteningly unclear.

Here is how I have experienced these posts:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: I guess I'd argue that Wade is favored by every cognitive bias in the book (while Drexler is the opposite) so we should be cautious whenever our unconscious reaction between the two is "Wade is obviously better and everyone knows it".

How is how it seems that my posts are being experienced:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: Scoring is garbage, championships are garbage, first options are garbage and peaks are garbage. Also your mom is ugly.

I really am not trying to take any of these extreme positions. I'm just trying to say that many arguments for Wade and Drexler rely on a lot of these cognitive biases in their reasoning (but in opposite directions) and that should make us more cautious, not more confident, in appraising their value.

So i think this is a disappointing response honestly. I'm challenging you on the points you're making and you seem to just go back and claim that there's some bias out there.

Wade was a big time player with very elite impact in his roles, the comparison between him and Drexler isn't that complicated. If you wanted to argue that say Draymond Green is better than Dirk Nowitzki you can make that claim, but claiming that scoring bias is the reason we should isn't really convincing, because we can't just subtract scoring and ignore how it effects everything else.

[sansterre]

But how many can perform the way Wade did? The list is undeniably limited at this point.



You can't seem to comprehend for some reason that Wade does way more than just score at a high level. He typically rated out near the top of the league in impact metrics, and in some cases like 06 rated 1st in RAPM. If you're going to say that Wade's scoring doesn't mean his overall impact was high, then you'd be wrong obviously.



So a player isn't allowed to have a few bad games? Lebron's 2016 finals gets propped up as the goat series by a lot of people, while they ignore how he underpeformed in the first 4 games to go down 3-1.

I'm not saying Wade's series was that kind of level, but we're comparing him to guys in the top 25 and 30, not goat guys.



You still haven't shown how this isn't a good thing lol. Funny that scoring a ton of points and using a lot of possessions is exactly what Harden does, and you have no problem voting Harden ahead? To me that sounds like cognitive bias, because I'm sure your response if you have one will be something like "Harden shoots 3zzz, and leads great ORTGzz".



So basically you're saying that being a not so good 1st offensive option is better than a good one. Got it.

Forgive me for being so frighteningly unclear.

Here is how I have experienced these posts:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: I guess I'd argue that Wade is favored by every cognitive bias in the book (while Drexler is the opposite) so we should be cautious whenever our unconscious reaction between the two is "Wade is obviously better and everyone knows it".

How is how it seems that my posts are being experienced:

Forum: How would you make an argument that Wade is worse than Drexler?
Me: Scoring is garbage, championships are garbage, first options are garbage and peaks are garbage. Also your mom is ugly.

I really am not trying to take any of these extreme positions. I'm just trying to say that many arguments for Wade and Drexler rely on a lot of these cognitive biases in their reasoning (but in opposite directions) and that should make us more cautious, not more confident, in appraising their value.

I take your point, but it just seems like you are throwing the baby out with the bath water a bit when trying to adjust for cognitive bias.

I suppose what I take objection to is the implication that Wade "just happened" to win one and maybe I'm reading your tone incorrectly. But it feels to me like that tantamount to coming close to chalking up a GOAT level performance on the highest stage (and in fact an all-time level ECF as well) to random variance. Of course he deserves blame for going 0-2 as much as he deserves credit for them winning 4 in a row, but my point was more that he personally came up big in big moments. I brought up 07 in particular because in my mind it makes very clear that he was capable of carrying on his dominating finals performance.

It seemed to me that you were suggesting that legacy wise the only thing separating Wade from the pack of all-stars (i.e. Drexler) is a fortunate ring in 06. But to me, Wade is a a couple of extremely untimely injuries and an all-time terrible performance from Lebron against Dallas from being much higher on this list.

I also think you are taking a pretty uncharitable reading of what I was going for with the championship option thing. My point with the #1 option thing (which perhaps I didn't really articulate well) was largely that Wade has a skillset that I am confident in trying to build a contender level team around in a way that I can't say about many people left in this Project (and definitely not Drexler). In my mind wade "fits the bill" as a championship #1 option because of his actual talent, not merely because he actually won one in 2006.

Drexler was spectacular in transition but in the playoffs in the half-court I'm not particularly fond of relying heavily on a guard who is neither a great ball handler nor a great shooter.

Wade on the other hand does have the handles to be your lead guard and the vision to be your primary playmaker in the half court. Wade is also one of the few slashers who the "build a wall" defense isn't particularly effective against because he was simply so lightning quick and slippery that he was able to find his way to the basket anyway. In his best years he was also a reliable mid range shooter who get those looks basically any time and I'm not particularly convinced that prime Drexler was any meaningfully better as a jump shooter.

Drexler has an excellent off-ball game, but so does Wade who was an outstanding cutter throughout his career (and I think this goes a long way to differentiate him from the high usage archetype).

Maybe you disagree, but I'm also substantially higher on Wade's defense than Drexler's.

In my mind looking at their actual games (in addition to the ultimate results), we have no reason to think that Drexler is a superior player in either a primary or secondary role than Wade.

Seeing as you're so empirically focused (which to be clear, I appreciate), I think it's also worth noting that RAPM is extremely kind to Wade in his prime and backs up what I believe to be the relatively popular perception that he was likely the league's second best player from 2009-2011. We don't have that data available for Drexler but I am genuinely curious, looking at his game do you think that he was ever having anything approaching that level of impact?

To be honest, I'm just using a blend of BackPicks playoff and regular season BPMs, and then converting that to the probability of winning a championship using a quadratic regression. So, full disclosure, I am *not* trying to reason based on some sort of sophisticated analysis of game footage. I'm starting with BackPicks and working backwards.

Basically, they have Drexler's eight-year peak as being fairly comparable to Wade's nine-year peak, and then all of Drexler's other years are at a reasonably high level where Wade's fall off a cliff.

So, point blank, their BPM could simply be wrong. After all, their Top 40 list has Wade way higher than Drexler. That said, here's what their numbers say about those primes:

1) Wade carried a notably bigger load than Drexler;
2) Wade shot a little better than Drexler efficiency-wise;
3) Wade created way more open looks for his teammates;
4) In terms of value per pass, Drexler may have been slightly better;
5) They had comparable spacing in their primes (Drexler adds spacing as he gets older);
6) Drexler turns the ball over a little less;
7) Nevertheless, Wade is more valuable as a scorer and a playmaker overall (not by mountains, but by a notable amount);
8) Drexler is a far better offensive rebounder, and a fairly better defensive rebounder;
9) At the intersection of these things, Wade's OBPM is rated at +3.7 for his peak and Drexler's is +3.0;
10) However, Drexler's DBPM is rated as being 0.6 higher than Wade's;
11) Drexler's teams were +1.6 higher in SRS, +1.7 better on offense, and 0.3 worse on defense;
12) Drexler's average 3 yr weighted postseason BPM for those years was +4.99, Wade's was +4.94;
13) At the intersection of these things, they're seen to have had basically comparable primes, and Drexler has way more value outside of peaks.

Is this intuitive? Definitely not. I'm guessing that Drexler's higher defensive rating is tied to being on only slightly worse defenses, but having less defensively-oriented lineups around him. But let's bear in mind a lot of subtle moving parts:

1) BackPicks BPM generally doesn't have a ton of love for volume without a lot of efficiency (it doesn't think particularly well of either player as a scorer, though it certainly likes Wade better)
2) Drexler was a much better rebounder. Don't know how much value that has, but it's some.
3) Drexler turned it over less. Don't know how much value that has, but it's some.
4) Drexler is rated by BackPicks as a noticeably better defender (by 0.6 points or so).
5) For those of you that care about best teams, the '92 Blazers had better regular and postseason SRSs than the '06 Heat, even if they didn't win a championship

At the intersection of 2 and 3 (which are facts), 5 (which is a valid point as far as it goes) and 1 and 4 (which are more evaluations, and may or may not be true) . . . Drexler and Wade look like they have way more comparable peaks than we might have guessed.

If tons of volume with decent efficiency is *a lot* better than merely high volume with slightly worse efficiency? Then this doesn't hold.

If Drexler was a worse defender than Wade? Then this definitely doesn't hold (although if I re-run the algorithm with Drexler's BPM 0.6 lower every year (so matching Wade's) the two are basically graded as even because of Drexler's longevity).

Drexler has a big longevity edge over Wade, which means that to be better (for career-value oriented people like me) Wade's peak needs to be far better. And even if we eschew BackPicks and go BBR, for those peaks it has Wade only slightly better in the regular season (7.0 to 6.4 and 50.8 VORP to 46.2) but in the playoffs those differences fade (Drexler +6.8 BPM vs Wade at +6.7). And if those BBR stats are accurate for their peaks, then Drexler is obviously the more valuable career, as he carries far more value outside of his peak.

Here's the wacky part of the argument:

All of the above (1 through 5) can be totally true, and it wouldn't *at all* invalidate any of the arguments you guys have made above.

Even if (if) volume scoring at only decent efficiency doesn't move the needle much, even if Drexler turned it over less, was a better rebounder, led a better team than Wade's championship team, and was a notably better defender (if):

1) Wade would still have been a better #1 scoring option (at least during the best, say, 9 years of their careers);
2) Wade would still have scored way more;
3) Wade would have been the best player, #1 option and leading scorer on a championship team;
4) And Drexler would not have been.

So, basically, if the #1 option + lots of points + a ring is your heuristic (or if it's "who had the best three years"), there's no real argument here, of course Wade is better. But more granular examinations suggest that it may be closer than that.

* As far as RAPM, I don't really know what Drexler's prime would have looked like. However we do have data on his last two years that compare pretty favorably to anything of Wade's outside of his peak. Which implicitly suggests that Drexler's prime may have been at least in the ballpark (although Drexler's career value arc was certainly flatter than Wade's). This is speculative of course. And let's not forget that WOWYR (which is an admittedly blunt instrument) really likes Drexler (ratings ranging between 4.3 and 6.3 depending on metric) and thinks little of Wade (everything below 2.5). Don't know what that means, but it's something.

Look. I have no expectation or intention of having people walk away from this thinking "Wow, Drexler actually *was* better than Wade!" That crap ain't happening. A win for me at this point is to get a "I still think Wade is better, but the argument that Drexler may have had the more valuable career in the aggregate isn't as crazy as I first thought."

[No-more-rings]

I sort of see where Sansterre is coming from with this, though i’d just point out that if a good chunk of that argument is going to come from backpicks stuff(which is not multiple people to my knowledge i think it’s just Ben Taylor), i think it’s somewhat undermined by the fact that he ranked 6 Wade seasons better than Drexler’s best. I don’t even think i’d agree with 6, but considering a player’s prime is usually around 8-10 seasons that seems pretty damn significant. And if we’re getting into past prime seasons, neither is giving you significant championship odds so it can’t carry a ton of weight really. I mean I think those evaluations are pretty telling about how Elgee views the gap between them in their primes, and it’s apparently not close based of his analysis.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Man. I'm stunned by how low this group is on Curry.

Just completely floored.

I truly don't understand why. A simple accounting of differing principles or philosophy in career comparisons (such as to those that value longevity to a greater degree) should suffice as explanation. Just as a few examples:

Harden and Pettit both have careers spanning the same 11 seasons as Curry has......but Harden has played 134 more rs games and almost 4,600 more minutes (nearly the equivalent of two full seasons more); Pettit played 93 more games and nearly 6,700 more minutes. Pettit reached his prime much quicker than Curry, too.

Everyone else with traction has an even larger edge in longevity and/or durability (EDIT: except maybe Wade). Thrown into the mix is that Curry's playoff consistency isn't much more bullet-proof than most of the others (particularly someone like Nash, and to a lesser degree Wade).


Not saying any of this is to suggest you should be supporting a different candidate; but "stunned" and "completely floored"? Just feels a touch dramatic.

Just as a few quick and dirty bullet-points....
*Even with his 2 MVP's (and the one and only unanimous MVP), Curry is STILL just *24th all-time in MVP award shares (no doubt would be 25th if it had been awarded in Mikan's day).

**He's 80th in NBA/ABA career rs WS (76th in NBA-only); 31st (30th) in the playoffs.

***He's 33rd [since 1973] in NBA/ABA career rs VORP (32nd in NBA-only); 25th in the playoffs.

****His impact goes beyond his box-production is often a talking point; though his best 5-years RAPM is still behind that of Nash, Wade, Ginobili, and barely ahead of late-career Stockton [among those still on the table], and also behind that of Chris Paul and Charles Barkley [among those only recently voted in].


Can it really be so shocking that not everyone has him in his top 25?

EDIT: I'll also add that you probably more than ANY other poster on this forum have advocated for era portability as being a fairly important consideration (and Curry is perhaps one of the most "era-fragile" talents in league-history (his best skill [the thing that makes him so special] is built around something that has only existed for 41 years [and was not a gimmick for only about 25-30]).

If you don't mind me asking, could I take a look at 5-year RAPM you are referring to that has him behind Nash, Wade, and Ginobili?

[sansterre]

I sort of see where Sansterre is coming from with this, though i’d just point out that if a good chunk of that argument is going to come from backpicks stuff(which is not multiple people to my knowledge i think it’s just Ben Taylor), i think it’s somewhat undermined by the fact that he ranked 6 Wade seasons better than Drexler’s best. I don’t even think i’d agree with 6, but considering a player’s prime is usually around 8-10 seasons that seems pretty damn significant. And if we’re getting into past prime seasons, neither is giving you significant championship odds so it can’t carry a ton of weight really. I mean I think those evaluations are pretty telling about how Elgee views the gap between them in their primes, and it’s apparently not close based of his analysis.

And it's a completely fair point that Ben basically contradicted his ratings to declare Wade's peak much better than Drexler's. He's a sharp guy, so there's ample reason to assume that he's correct here.

As for "don't have significant championship odds" that's not necessarily true. Let's take Drexler's 1997 season, which was strong but not great. Here are some seasons with a similar BPM:

'81 Bird
'81 Parish
'11 Ginobili
'97 Schrempf
'98 Schrempf
'89 Olajuwon
'91 Grant
'98 Stockton
'97 Divac
'97 Hornacek
'90 Worthy
'08 Odom

None of those guys is a world-beater, but they're all very good players. And of players at that skill level, around 10% win titles (the above group is a higher percentage, but I use a bigger sampling). Since a completely unremarkable player would be expected to have a 3-4% championship rate just for existing, 10% represents solid value, even if it's nothing you'd brag about to your friends.

[trex_8063]

Man. I'm stunned by how low this group is on Curry.

Just completely floored.

I truly don't understand why. A simple accounting of differing principles or philosophy in career comparisons (such as to those that value longevity to a greater degree) should suffice as explanation. Just as a few examples:

Harden and Pettit both have careers spanning the same 11 seasons as Curry has......but Harden has played 134 more rs games and almost 4,600 more minutes (nearly the equivalent of two full seasons more); Pettit played 93 more games and nearly 6,700 more minutes. Pettit reached his prime much quicker than Curry, too.

Everyone else with traction has an even larger edge in longevity and/or durability (EDIT: except maybe Wade). Thrown into the mix is that Curry's playoff consistency isn't much more bullet-proof than most of the others (particularly someone like Nash, and to a lesser degree Wade).


Not saying any of this is to suggest you should be supporting a different candidate; but "stunned" and "completely floored"? Just feels a touch dramatic.

Just as a few quick and dirty bullet-points....
*Even with his 2 MVP's (and the one and only unanimous MVP), Curry is STILL just *24th all-time in MVP award shares (no doubt would be 25th if it had been awarded in Mikan's day).

**He's 80th in NBA/ABA career rs WS (76th in NBA-only); 31st (30th) in the playoffs.

***He's 33rd [since 1973] in NBA/ABA career rs VORP (32nd in NBA-only); 25th in the playoffs.

****His impact goes beyond his box-production is often a talking point; though his best 5-years RAPM is still behind that of Nash, Wade, Ginobili, and barely ahead of late-career Stockton [among those still on the table], and also behind that of Chris Paul and Charles Barkley [among those only recently voted in].


Can it really be so shocking that not everyone has him in his top 25?

EDIT: I'll also add that you probably more than ANY other poster on this forum have advocated for era portability as being a fairly important consideration (and Curry is perhaps one of the most "era-fragile" talents in league-history (his best skill [the thing that makes him so special] is built around something that has only existed for 41 years [and was not a gimmick for only about 25-30]).

If you don't mind me asking, could I take a look at 5-year RAPM you are referring to that has him behind Nash, Wade, and Ginobili?

For '97-'00 I used this source.

For '01-'19 I used the data/spreadsheets produced by Jeremias Engelmann:
'01-'13
'15 (PI)
'16 (PI)
'17 (PI)
'18 (rs only, NPI)
'19 (rs only, NPI)

I can't seem to find the sheet I used for '14, though I have a note that J.E. was the source for that one as well; I have the figures for the year recorded in my own spreadsheet for notable players (+7.26 for Chris Paul, +4.59 for Durant, +4.49 for Harden, +3.84 for Curry, +3.50 for Ginobili).

I use PI where available, as I feel it's more reliable [in most instances] than NPI.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I truly don't understand why. A simple accounting of differing principles or philosophy in career comparisons (such as to those that value longevity to a greater degree) should suffice as explanation. Just as a few examples:

Harden and Pettit both have careers spanning the same 11 seasons as Curry has......but Harden has played 134 more rs games and almost 4,600 more minutes (nearly the equivalent of two full seasons more); Pettit played 93 more games and nearly 6,700 more minutes. Pettit reached his prime much quicker than Curry, too.

Everyone else with traction has an even larger edge in longevity and/or durability (EDIT: except maybe Wade). Thrown into the mix is that Curry's playoff consistency isn't much more bullet-proof than most of the others (particularly someone like Nash, and to a lesser degree Wade).


Not saying any of this is to suggest you should be supporting a different candidate; but "stunned" and "completely floored"? Just feels a touch dramatic.

Just as a few quick and dirty bullet-points....
*Even with his 2 MVP's (and the one and only unanimous MVP), Curry is STILL just *24th all-time in MVP award shares (no doubt would be 25th if it had been awarded in Mikan's day).

**He's 80th in NBA/ABA career rs WS (76th in NBA-only); 31st (30th) in the playoffs.

***He's 33rd [since 1973] in NBA/ABA career rs VORP (32nd in NBA-only); 25th in the playoffs.

****His impact goes beyond his box-production is often a talking point; though his best 5-years RAPM is still behind that of Nash, Wade, Ginobili, and barely ahead of late-career Stockton [among those still on the table], and also behind that of Chris Paul and Charles Barkley [among those only recently voted in].


Can it really be so shocking that not everyone has him in his top 25?

EDIT: I'll also add that you probably more than ANY other poster on this forum have advocated for era portability as being a fairly important consideration (and Curry is perhaps one of the most "era-fragile" talents in league-history (his best skill [the thing that makes him so special] is built around something that has only existed for 41 years [and was not a gimmick for only about 25-30]).

If you don't mind me asking, could I take a look at 5-year RAPM you are referring to that has him behind Nash, Wade, and Ginobili?

For '97-'00 I used this source.

For '01-'19 I used the data/spreadsheets produced by Jeremias Engelmann:
'01-'13
'15 (PI)
'16 (PI)
'17 (PI)
'18 (rs only, NPI)
'19 (rs only, NPI)

I can't seem to find the sheet I used for '14, though I have a note that J.E. was the source for that one as well; I have the figures for the year recorded in my own spreadsheet for notable players (+7.26 for Chris Paul, +4.59 for Durant, +4.49 for Harden, +3.84 for Curry, +3.50 for Ginobili).

I use PI where available, as I feel it's more reliable [in most instances] than NPI.

Thank you so much for the sources!

[therealbig3]

Not going to hate on the Curry pick, but the lack of Nash support is surprising. Some of the names ahead of him I don’t agree with, but that’s whatever, everyone has different opinions. But I would think Curry’s success would make people re-evaluate Nash and give him more credit if they doubted him back then. You CAN be an offensive minded PG that leads an uptempo, fast paced, high scoring team AND win championships...given that your teammates ALSO play really good defense, which Nash didn’t have.

Nash to me is not a guy that didn’t have what it takes as an individual...he was a guy that didn’t have what it takes in terms of the team around him, and actually got them overachieving.

Hoping he gets serious traction in #25.

[therealbig3]

Regarding being “not that impressed” by Curry:

He’s obviously a great player. But 5 Finals and 3 rings...can we put them in perspective before we say it’s the most impressive team accomplishment since the Bulls and it’s ALL built around Curry’s skill set and it was such a unique and amazing thing that happened?

The 15 and 16 Warriors won 140 RS games and went to back to back Finals. Then they ADDED a prime Kevin Durant. They SHOULD have won however many titles they played healthy. And it shouldn’t have been close. And yet they still almost lost in 2018 and would have lost if not for a CP3 injury. How did any mortal team come close to challenging them? To me, this tells me that the sum was not greater than the parts and a lot of that does fly in the face of the Curry narrative of him being this ultra portable player whose gravity gives everyone open looks and leads to an unstoppable offense. They were clearly stoppable after just one year of looking invincible.

And the Warriors offense had serious struggles in 2015 and 2016, when they had a “normal” contender.

Idk, I can’t look at their accomplishments from 2017-2019 and really feel all that impressed by anything, because it was so expected and SHOULD have been the case. That was such an unusually stacked team. When Curry was on a “typical” contender, he led the best RS team of all time that looked pretty unimpressive in the playoffs. If you want to blame injuries, then look at their comparable team from the year before...they won the title, but they didn’t exactly look all that impressive doing it, at least on the offensive side of the ball.

So when people say, look at Curry’s INCREDIBLE 5 year run...eh, I really only see a 2 year run where I can accurately judge him, and that wasn’t really what I would call “impressive” relative to the competition he has around this spot. I think having CP3 and Curry at a similar level as far as peak is fair, in which case CP3 has clearly superior longevity. It’s not an indefensible position at all.

Unless you want to just ring count and MVP count, and go with popular narratives, then have at it, put Curry in the top 10.

[eminence]

Not going to hate on the Curry pick, but the lack of Nash support is surprising. Some of the names ahead of him I don’t agree with, but that’s whatever, everyone has different opinions. But I would think Curry’s success would make people re-evaluate Nash and give him more credit if they doubted him back then. You CAN be an offensive minded PG that leads an uptempo, fast paced, high scoring team AND win championships...given that your teammates ALSO play really good defense, which Nash didn’t have.

Nash to me is not a guy that didn’t have what it takes as an individual...he was a guy that didn’t have what it takes in terms of the team around him, and actually got them overachieving.

Hoping he gets serious traction in #25.

Pettit got in at #25, #26 is shaping up to be Nash vs Stockton, with Wade in there too, not sure if anyone else will seriously challenge.

[therealbig3]

Not going to hate on the Curry pick, but the lack of Nash support is surprising. Some of the names ahead of him I don’t agree with, but that’s whatever, everyone has different opinions. But I would think Curry’s success would make people re-evaluate Nash and give him more credit if they doubted him back then. You CAN be an offensive minded PG that leads an uptempo, fast paced, high scoring team AND win championships...given that your teammates ALSO play really good defense, which Nash didn’t have.

Nash to me is not a guy that didn’t have what it takes as an individual...he was a guy that didn’t have what it takes in terms of the team around him, and actually got them overachieving.

Hoping he gets serious traction in #25.

Pettit got in at #25, #26 is shaping up to be Nash vs Stockton, with Wade in there too, not sure if anyone else will seriously challenge.

Ah gotcha.

[Doctor MJ]

Regarding being “not that impressed” by Curry:

He’s obviously a great player. But 5 Finals and 3 rings...can we put them in perspective before we say it’s the most impressive team accomplishment since the Bulls and it’s ALL built around Curry’s skill set and it was such a unique and amazing thing that happened?

The 15 and 16 Warriors won 140 RS games and went to back to back Finals. Then they ADDED a prime Kevin Durant. They SHOULD have won however many titles they played healthy. And it shouldn’t have been close. And yet they still almost lost in 2018 and would have lost if not for a CP3 injury. How did any mortal team come close to challenging them? To me, this tells me that the sum was not greater than the parts and a lot of that does fly in the face of the Curry narrative of him being this ultra portable player whose gravity gives everyone open looks and leads to an unstoppable offense. They were clearly stoppable after just one year of looking invincible.

And the Warriors offense had serious struggles in 2015 and 2016, when they had a “normal” contender.

Idk, I can’t look at their accomplishments from 2017-2019 and really feel all that impressed by anything, because it was so expected and SHOULD have been the case. That was such an unusually stacked team. When Curry was on a “typical” contender, he led the best RS team of all time that looked pretty unimpressive in the playoffs. If you want to blame injuries, then look at their comparable team from the year before...they won the title, but they didn’t exactly look all that impressive doing it, at least on the offensive side of the ball.

So when people say, look at Curry’s INCREDIBLE 5 year run...eh, I really only see a 2 year run where I can accurately judge him, and that wasn’t really what I would call “impressive” relative to the competition he has around this spot. I think having CP3 and Curry at a similar level as far as peak is fair, in which case CP3 has clearly superior longevity. It’s not an indefensible position at all.

Unless you want to just ring count and MVP count, and go with popular narratives, then have at it, put Curry in the top 10.

k realbig, I'll bite:

You just used Curry winning 140 games in 2 regular seasons against him like it was some kind of bad thing. Think about that. In all the time you and I have known each other, THIS team was the best thing we ever saw. And you're managing to look at what they did and hang disappointment around the fulcrum of all that. And you're not the only one. There's a skeptical wind blowing on Curry and I'm amazed at how many smart, knowledgeable posters are swept up in it.

If you're honest, you know what you're doing is damning Curry for falling short of something. And what is that something? Logically, it's got to be the 2016 finals. I understand you can point to more than one series and say Curry wasn't an absolute machine, but were you talking like this after the Warriors came back and eliminated the Thunder? Doubtful. 5 years, his team went 18-2 in playoff series, and in the 2nd loss (Toronto) his play was fantastic. So really what you're doing is knocking him for going 18-2 instead of 19-1 because that other loss was just so, so bad, right?

Curry's stats in that series? 22.6 PPG as the team's leading scorer, on 58.0 TS%. He was 27 at the time.

Not the best you'd ever hope to see of course - that's why it's the worst of Curry's 5 finals appearances, but how damning is it?

LeBron in 2011 went for only 17.8 PPG as the team's 3rd leading scorer, and so on 54.1 TS%. He was 26 at the time. Guess CP3's on a similar level to LeBron too. Man, isn't it great the way CP3 keeps moving up in the world through argumentation on RealGM? I feel like if I go on bkref right now I'm going to experience the Mandela Effect and learn all about the Clippers' dynasty.

Apologies for the snark. I'm frustrated.

I just think it's important that when we're looking to damn Curry as lacking the ability to be a true alpha getting the most out of his team we should remember we're doing this because of one disappointing series that was nowhere near as bad as one we saw LeBron have at roughly the same age.

I would suggest to you and everyone else that you're all more skeptical of Curry than his playoff performances actually warrant, and that there are reasons for this that go straight to what Curry looks like as a player. A dude who looks like Curry can't be THAT good right? We're looking for evidence of his diminutive frame to say "See, he's no MJ, no LeBron, no KD...", and when we find it, we tend to run with it.

Am I saying Curry's always performed as well as was hoped? Nope, only that people are holding it against Curry more than they do most because of his atraditional rise to prominence. There's a strong pull to see him as a gimmick, and so we don't give him the benefit of the doubt we do with the guys who actually look like superheroes.

Clearly my words aren't persuading anyone so we can just leave it for now, but I hope people chew on it at least.

[eminence]

Not sure how to embed one of these here, so here's a link.

https://public.tableau.com/views/PeriodRAPM/EraRAPM?:language=en&:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

But basically I think any questions of Curry's impact numbers are absolutely absurd.

4 different 5 year eras ('97-'01, '02-'06, '07-'11, '12-'16). Curry's '12-'16 ranks:

Offensively
+9.2 Nash '07-'11
+8.2 LeBron '12-'16
+8.1 Dirk '02-'06/MJ '97-'01
5th +7.9 Curry '12-'16

Overall
+11.5 LeBron '12-'16
+11.2 LeBron '07-'11
+10.9 KG 02-'06
+9.9 MJ '97-'01
T-5th +9.8 Curry/CP3 '12-'16

[freethedevil]

Regarding being “not that impressed” by Curry:

He’s obviously a great player. But 5 Finals and 3 rings...can we put them in perspective before we say it’s the most impressive team accomplishment since the Bulls and it’s ALL built around Curry’s skill set and it was such a unique and amazing thing that happened?

The 15 and 16 Warriors won 140 RS games and went to back to back Finals.
Well here's issue one. You're holding an accomishment that curry contributed to against him without isolating how much he had to do with it and how much was the basis of his team.

The 15-16 warriors didn't even play nearly as good as the 19 raptors did withotu kawhi. Whatever impact mesuarement u go by curry's wins added ranges from 22-25 wins(and it is harder to lift 40-65+ than 10-40)

PLayoffs can be used as evidence curry dropped off from his rs self, but u cannot suddenly attribute the regular seaosn to curry's teammates and then change your tune in the playoffs where the struggles are on curry.



Then they ADDED a prime Kevin Durant. They SHOULD have won however many titles they played healthy. And it shouldn’t have been close. And yet they still almost lost in 2018 and would have lost if not for a CP3 injury.
And they would have won quicker if not for an iggy injury. Also, the rockets played 70 win basketball when cp3 and harden were in the lineup.

Finally curry had just come off an injury and youa ttributing "well they were taken to game 7" to curry, when we've already seen currys warriors beat comparable teams(like 2016 okc) withotu durant.

Finally, ignoring that curry had an injury which acorrding to medical professionals takes months to recover from shoots a bullet in your point. The 17 cavs were a title level team and with a healthy curry the warriors destroyed them.

And if u wanna focus on offense, then its only fair to focus on opposing defenses.

Here's how PRIME DURANT and a healthy curry fared against the best defense they encountered:
[b]https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2017-nba-western-conference-semifinals-jazz-vs-warriors.html

Lets make believe durant creates for others like curry does, curry shot 7 points better on identical volume.

Impact metrics, net on/off, regular season impact metrics, regular season on/off and even simply replacing "assists" with "scoring oppurtnies created" will tell you that curry was the far more valuable piece of the 17 run.

So if curry's injury coincides with them being taken to 7 by the rockets, and curry, with a similar injury to his 2018 one, in 2016 is able to lead the warriors past a comparable team to the 18 rockets in the 16 thunder. It becomes dubious to be pinning curry as --inconsistent-- and blaming him for the warrios, not being 'invincible' when curry's health correlates with the warriors playoff success more than durant's presence on the team does. Even the 16 finals vs 17 finals as a feather in durant's cap stpos really working if you realize that the warriors had the cavs dead to rights before a bunch of events which didn't occur in the 17 finals(even ignoring that curry di dindeed have an injury which medical professionals say takes months to recover and which he ended up getting surgery for).

This is the issue with only looking at team level results when we have ways to isolate induvidual impact.

Curry's playoff aupm as of 13-15 is exceptional, so are his rs stats. A gutted 19 warriors nearly beat a raptors team that themslves,
-> played at a 60 win rs pace without their best player
-> was able to make the second round an dthe confernece finals before swithcing out a bad coach for arguably the best one and switching out an ineffecient chuker for a defensive anchor.
-> Beat a bucks team which up until they ran into the raptors were outdoing the 91 bulls in terms of competition adjusted srs during the first two rounds and posted two historically dominant regular seasons in 19 and 20.

ALl in all, curry's warriors, durant-less, generally do nearly as well as durant's warriors with curry hobbled and yet you're pinning the warriors not being "invincible"(because stacked teams most definitely do not struggle against good comp on repeat and three peat campaigns, lets ignore the kareem=magic lakers, the first three peat bulls, the second three peat bulls, the russell celtics numerous game 7's and game 6's ect, ect) on curry, a player with loads of evidence of induvdiual impact, fantastic granular stats, playoff and regular season, ect, ect as opposed to

Durant, a player with very little correlation between his box stats going up and his impact increasing, whose never increased his scoring volume when his usage has ticked up and whose apex from an induvdiual impact perspetcive has been rivalled in a wide avriety of metircs(actually outdone in the playoffs) by pre-17 westbrook.

Outside of a low usage 2012 run and a 2016 series where the spurs decided to focus the brunt of thir attention on westbrook(and he racked up an incredilble 54 assist percentage as his ts went down and all of his teammates ts skyrocketed), durant's effiency plummted against good defenses in a way akin to robinson in the playoffs.[/b]

How did any mortal team come close to challenging them? To me, this tells me that the sum was not greater than the parts and a lot of that does fly in the face of the Curry narrative of him being this ultra portable player whose gravity gives everyone open looks and leads to an unstoppable offense. They were clearly stoppable after just one year of looking invincible.
Are you applying this consistently?

[b]Magic and Kareem were in a way weaker west than curry's west or lebron's east. Possibly the weakest confernece realtive to era in nba history.

That didn't stop them from

-> Losing to a team with a loing record in the first round(right after a fairly dominant title)
-> Getting swept by a 'normal contender' in 64

Can you explain why being taken to 7 by the rockets, losing to the cavs, or being taken to 6 by the cavs and memphis is as bad as losing to a 40-42 team in the first roudn right after you win the title.

Where is the dissection of Magic as a overrated system piece?

You brought up the bulls. Th 91 Bulls were incredibly stacked realtive to competition. Jordan's scoring, defense, creation all went down from 89 and 90 both in terms of volume and effiency and yet they went from valiant losers to title leavel teams/contenders to blowing out almost all of their playoff games.

They ripped the pistons to pieces with jordan imitating klay thompson in the first two games of the ecf. jordan shot 54% against the sixers, commited defensive breakdowns twice a game against hawkins, barely handled the ball and the bulls hit them out of the park.

And yet, with in 92 and 93 a team that ripped playoff competition to shreds without jordan needing to be spectacular for much of the postseason were taken to 7 by the knicks and were taken to at least 6 by three of four opponents.

Mind you the regular season bulls srs skyrocketed from 91 to 92, they won 7 more games, adn yet they went from lapping the field to being taken to 7 by a team you'd be hard pressed to argue was as good as the 18 rockets.


Why is Curry's team having a cloe series against the rockets an issue but we look the other way with regards to magic johnson and jordan?

Should I bring up bill russell whose teams would have identical srs's in the rgelar season and then would suddenly be taken to 7 or 6 by teams that supposedly shouldn't be within distance of them according to the rs?


Curry's pre-kd warriors, were so stacked at their height in 2016 they....

were on their way to blowing a 2-0 lead against the 43 win trailblazers before curry was subbed in.

The 94 bulls nearly knocked off a team that came a few possessions within a title and then after losing rodman played at a 53 win pace prior to jordan's arrival at full strength.

Then jordan comes, reacclimates, they add a replacement for grant in rodman, they win 72 games and....the bulls nearly blow a 3-0 lead to the supersonics.

Fyi, the bulls came very close to losing in 95 AND 96 posting very nice regular seasons.

Why?
[/b]
And the Warriors offense had serious struggles in 2015 and 2016, when they had a “normal” contender.

Idk, I can’t look at their accomplishments from 2017-2019 and really feel all that impressed by anything, because it was so expected and SHOULD have been the case. That was such an unusually stacked team. When Curry was on a “typical” contender, he led the best RS team of all time that looked pretty unimpressive in the playoffs. If you want to blame injuries, then look at their comparable team from the year before...they won the title, but they didn’t exactly look all that impressive doing it, at least on the offensive side of the ball.
And this doesn't apply to any version of the bulls outside of their 91 playoffs?

Any versio of the lakers outside of their 80 plyoffs?

Any version of the heatles outside of 2012?

Any version of the spurs outside of 14?
(actually scratch 2014 they got taken to 7, by [b]the mavs)

Any version of the celtics outside of a couple years here and there?

The 93 rockets?

Any verson of shaq's lakers outside of 2001?


The 17 warriros were quite arguably the _strongest_ playoff run en route to a title

The 16 warriors were quite arguably the strongest playoff run en route to a finals loss

The 18 rockets were arguably the strongest team not to win a title

If you're going to harp on curry not ripping everything to shreds en route to b2b2 titles, a dynasty, beating multiple title level opponts, and 5 straight finals both in exceptional and nont so exceptional circumstances, its only fair to do so to just about every other all time great ever.
[/b]
So when people say, look at Curry’s INCREDIBLE 5 year run...eh, I really only see a 2 year run where I can accurately judge him, and that wasn’t really what I would call “impressive” relative to the competition he has around this spot. I think having CP3 and Curry at a similar level as far as peak is fair, in which case CP3 has clearly superior longevity. It’s not an indefensible position at all.

Unless you want to just ring count and MVP count, and go with popular narratives, then have at it, put Curry in the top 10.

This is fine, as long as you recognize we can drag down Magic Johnson, Micheal Jordan, Shaq, Russell, Lebron, Tim Duncan, hakeem, and every player known to man as having a cp3 peak if we apply the reasoning you're applying consistently.

[therealbig3]

Well here's issue one. You're holding an accomishment that curry contributed to against him without isolating how much he had to do with it and how much was the basis of his team.

The 15-16 warriors didn't even play nearly as good as the 19 raptors did withotu kawhi. Whatever impact mesuarement u go by curry's wins added ranges from 22-25 wins(and it is harder to lift 40-65+ than 10-40)

PLayoffs can be used as evidence curry dropped off from his rs self, but u cannot suddenly attribute the regular seaosn to curry's teammates and then change your tune in the playoffs where the struggles are on curry.

No, I think leading a dominant RS is notable, but its translation to the playoffs is the most important thing. The Warriors have underachieved offensively compared to their RS performance with Curry on the court in all but one PS (2017). You can dismiss KD as not being as good as Curry, but that doesn't mean he wasn't an excellent player in his own right...pretty sure everybody agrees on that point at least. And I think painting broad strokes of who KD is as a player to define his importance to GS specifically misses the underlying reason why he made them so devastating in 2017. The Warriors only obvious weakness from the previous 2 years was the lack of an elite ISO scorer in the half court (Curry struggled in this role in both 2015 and 2016, there's no two ways about it) and a reliable deep threat to hit the open 3s that Harrison Barnes kept missing in the 2016 Finals. The playoffs are mostly about matchups and not having exploitable weaknesses. KD basically added to their strengths while taking away their one major weakness. That's what made him so valuable to GS, even if his impact numbers historically don't rank him where his reputation suggests. And if you look at Curry's performance with and without KD on the court, there's evidence that KD's presence helped Curry a lot too.

And they would have won quicker if not for an iggy injury. Also, the rockets played 70 win basketball when cp3 and harden were in the lineup.

Finally curry had just come off an injury and youa ttributing "well they were taken to game 7" to curry, when we've already seen currys warriors beat comparable teams(like 2016 okc) withotu durant.

Finally, ignoring that curry had an injury which acorrding to medical professionals takes months to recover from shoots a bullet in your point. The 17 cavs were a title level team and with a healthy curry the warriors destroyed them.

And if u wanna focus on offense, then its only fair to focus on opposing defenses.

Here's how PRIME DURANT and a healthy curry fared against the best defense they encountered:
[b]https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2017-nba-western-conference-semifinals-jazz-vs-warriors.html

Lets make believe durant creates for others like curry does, curry shot 7 points better on identical volume.

Impact metrics, net on/off, regular season impact metrics, regular season on/off and even simply replacing "assists" with "scoring oppurtnies created" will tell you that curry was the far more valuable piece of the 17 run.

So if curry's injury coincides with them being taken to 7 by the rockets, and curry, with a similar injury to his 2018 one, in 2016 is able to lead the warriors past a comparable team to the 18 rockets in the 16 thunder. It becomes dubious to be pinning curry as --inconsistent-- and blaming him for the warrios, not being 'invincible' when curry's health correlates with the warriors playoff success more than durant's presence on the team does. Even the 16 finals vs 17 finals as a feather in durant's cap stpos really working if you realize that the warriors had the cavs dead to rights before a bunch of events which didn't occur in the 17 finals(even ignoring that curry di dindeed have an injury which medical professionals say takes months to recover and which he ended up getting surgery for).

This is the issue with only looking at team level results when we have ways to isolate induvidual impact.

Curry's playoff aupm as of 13-15 is exceptional, so are his rs stats. A gutted 19 warriors nearly beat a raptors team that themslves,
-> played at a 60 win rs pace without their best player
-> was able to make the second round an dthe confernece finals before swithcing out a bad coach for arguably the best one and switching out an ineffecient chuker for a defensive anchor.
-> Beat a bucks team which up until they ran into the raptors were outdoing the 91 bulls in terms of competition adjusted srs during the first two rounds and posted two historically dominant regular seasons in 19 and 20.

ALl in all, curry's warriors, durant-less, generally do nearly as well as durant's warriors with curry hobbled and yet you're pinning the warriors not being "invincible"(because stacked teams most definitely do not struggle against good comp on repeat and three peat campaigns, lets ignore the kareem=magic lakers, the first three peat bulls, the second three peat bulls, the russell celtics numerous game 7's and game 6's ect, ect) on curry, a player with loads of evidence of induvdiual impact, fantastic granular stats, playoff and regular season, ect, ect as opposed to

Durant, a player with very little correlation between his box stats going up and his impact increasing, whose never increased his scoring volume when his usage has ticked up and whose apex from an induvdiual impact perspetcive has been rivalled in a wide avriety of metircs(actually outdone in the playoffs) by pre-17 westbrook.

Outside of a low usage 2012 run and a 2016 series where the spurs decided to focus the brunt of thir attention on westbrook(and he racked up an incredilble 54 assist percentage as his ts went down and all of his teammates ts skyrocketed), durant's effiency plummted against good defenses in a way akin to robinson in the playoffs.

Iggy's value shouldn't be that high on a team with Curry, Durant, Klay, and Green. It's just not a great reason why a team with such a collection of talent can't beat another team with the same amount of MVP-level players and half as many All-Stars. And it sounds silly to compare Iggy's value to the Warriors as their 5th best player to CP3's value to the Rockets as their 2nd best player (or best, depending on how you view his impact relative to Harden's). And they STILL would have lost to a CP3-less Rockets team if they didn't have the worst shooting performance of all time in game 7, a game the Warriors barely won. The fact that the Rockets were playing them evenly is kind of my point...they didn't have the talent the Warriors did, which means they either overachieved, or the Warriors underachieved. Given the fact that the Warriors offense wasn't exactly lighting it up throughout those playoffs, I think it's at least a combination of the two. I'm not impressed by a team more talented that barely squeaks by an opponent they should beat handily. Your points about previous teams are noted...they SHOULD be put in the proper perspective. But you also have to view how the player's individual performance affected that drop-off. Curry not only missed games in the 2018 playoffs, he also underperformed as an individual, and it correlates with a team underperformance. To give him a pass for this doesn't make a lot of sense. This isn't a case like Jordan where you're bringing up series in which he wasn't playing his best ball but his team dominated anyway...Curry wasn't playing his best ball and a lucky break is why they won. There's a difference.

I'm also not sure why you're comparing Durant and Curry when that's not what I was doing. I know Curry's impact metrics are much better historically. It doesn't change what Durant provided to that team specifically.

Re: Curry's injuries, isn't this a reason why he should be docked a bit? If he's consistently getting injured and can't play at 100% and this affects his performance to the point that his team ends up underperforming significantly, this is a difference between him and say, LeBron. It actually sounds very CP3-like.

I'm also saying that the 2017-2019 Warriors didn't do much to answer my doubts about Curry that came up in 2015 and 2016, because they were so much more stacked relative to their competition. And even with the most stacked team of all time, they still had notable struggles. I don't think I'm walking away from that stretch and saying "Wow!"...I'm saying "meh".

Magic and Kareem were in a way weaker west than curry's west or lebron's east. Possibly the weakest confernece realtive to era in nba history.

That didn't stop them from

-> Losing to a team with a loing record in the first round(right after a fairly dominant title)
-> Getting swept by a 'normal contender' in 64

Can you explain why being taken to 7 by the rockets, losing to the cavs, or being taken to 6 by the cavs and memphis is as bad as losing to a 40-42 team in the first roudn right after you win the title.

Where is the dissection of Magic as a overrated system piece?

You brought up the bulls. Th 91 Bulls were incredibly stacked realtive to competition. Jordan's scoring, defense, creation all went down from 89 and 90 both in terms of volume and effiency and yet they went from valiant losers to title leavel teams/contenders to blowing out almost all of their playoff games.

They ripped the pistons to pieces with jordan imitating klay thompson in the first two games of the ecf. jordan shot 54% against the sixers, commited defensive breakdowns twice a game against hawkins, barely handled the ball and the bulls hit them out of the park.

And yet, with in 92 and 93 a team that ripped playoff competition to shreds without jordan needing to be spectacular for much of the postseason were taken to 7 by the knicks and were taken to at least 6 by three of four opponents.

Mind you the regular season bulls srs skyrocketed from 91 to 92, they won 7 more games, adn yet they went from lapping the field to being taken to 7 by a team you'd be hard pressed to argue was as good as the 18 rockets.


Why is Curry's team having a cloe series against the rockets an issue but we look the other way with regards to magic johnson and jordan?

Should I bring up bill russell whose teams would have identical srs's in the rgelar season and then would suddenly be taken to 7 or 6 by teams that supposedly shouldn't be within distance of them according to the rs?


Curry's pre-kd warriors, were so stacked at their height in 2016 they....

were on their way to blowing a 2-0 lead against the 43 win trailblazers before curry was subbed in.

The 94 bulls nearly knocked off a team that came a few possessions within a title and then after losing rodman played at a 53 win pace prior to jordan's arrival at full strength.

Then jordan comes, reacclimates, they add a replacement for grant in rodman, they win 72 games and....the bulls nearly blow a 3-0 lead to the supersonics.

Fyi, the bulls came very close to losing in 95 AND 96 posting very nice regular seasons.

Why?

The 81 Lakers-Rockets series was a best of 3 series, and it was a pre-prime Magic. It's different than a best of 5 or best of 7 series and it's different than talking about a prime Curry.

Sure, let's examine those series in the proper light though. I have no problem with that. But I don't see as much evidence that they struggled individually the way Curry has, and my main issue with Curry (and has been a consistent point of mine) is with regards to his offensive GOAT candidacy, which is what we're really talking about here. That's really why he's in the conversation right now. And I don't see another offensive GOAT candidate that has struggled to lead a dominant PS offense the way Curry has. We can bring up teammates, but other GOAT candidates have elevated their individual performance and have gotten the most out of their teammates to the point that they were able to dominate offensively despite struggling teammates (LeBron and Nash come to mind). We also know that Draymond Green has notably tended to step up his performance in the PS, especially in Curry's absence, and for all the criticisms of Durant, he's played exceptionally well in his role for GS. Klay Thompson has ups and downs, but is basically the same player as he is in the RS. Curry's core teammates more or less play the same, if not better...it's Curry that sees a decline in his play, and this is consistently leading to an unimpressive offensive performance (for offensive GOAT standards).

Saying the pre-KD Warriors without Curry came close to blowing a 2-0 lead until he subbed is one way of saying that they won a playoff series and built a 2-1 lead without him. Pre-KD, the Warriors were 4-2 in the playoffs without Curry, and were overall 9-3 in the playoffs between 2015-2019 without him. Their performance was actually extremely impressive, and it puts these impact stats into context. First of all, there's legitimate question as to whether or not Draymond Green is actually the MVP of the Warriors, since so much of his and Curry's minutes overlap, and it demonstrates that this is an extremely talented supporting cast that is capable of winning playoff games (was 2 games from the conference finals without Curry or KD in 2016, dominated their way to a 1st round win and a blowout game 1 win against NO in 2018 without Curry) without their best player and can adjust. So the numbers that paint them as an average or barely above average supporting cast really needs context, because they've proven themselves in the playoffs without Curry or Durant.

Also, I vehemently disagree that the Bulls almost blew a 3-0 lead in 96. Losing 2 games after going up 3-0 is just as easily explained by complacency rather than almost blowing it and underperforming.

This is fine, as long as you recognize we can drag down Magic Johnson, Micheal Jordan, Shaq, Russell, Lebron, Tim Duncan, hakeem, and every player known to man as having a cp3 peak if we apply the reasoning you're applying consistently.

As far as the offensive anchors go, there's a consistent track record of Jordan, LeBron, and Magic leading dominant PS offenses and individually elevating their games in order to do so, overcoming the struggles of any teammates along the way or enabling their teammates' performances. I find that lacking in Curry's PS resume, which is why they are on another level in terms of peak relative to Curry or CP3 imo.

But I think your post was great, definitely has me chewing on a bunch of things. I'm also not familiar with AUPM, can you explain?

[therealbig3]

Not sure how to embed one of these here, so here's a link.

https://public.tableau.com/views/PeriodRAPM/EraRAPM?:language=en&:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

But basically I think any questions of Curry's impact numbers are absolutely absurd.

4 different 5 year eras ('97-'01, '02-'06, '07-'11, '12-'16). Curry's '12-'16 ranks:

Offensively
+9.2 Nash '07-'11
+8.2 LeBron '12-'16
+8.1 Dirk '02-'06/MJ '97-'01
5th +7.9 Curry '12-'16

Overall
+11.5 LeBron '12-'16
+11.2 LeBron '07-'11
+10.9 KG 02-'06
+9.9 MJ '97-'01
T-5th +9.8 Curry/CP3 '12-'16

So, doesn't this support the notion that it's not indefensible to have Curry and CP3 at a similar peak, and that Curry does indeed fall short of LeBron and Nash offensively?

Because those statements are what is "flooring" people...which I don't understand honestly.

[therealbig3]

Regarding being “not that impressed” by Curry:

He’s obviously a great player. But 5 Finals and 3 rings...can we put them in perspective before we say it’s the most impressive team accomplishment since the Bulls and it’s ALL built around Curry’s skill set and it was such a unique and amazing thing that happened?

The 15 and 16 Warriors won 140 RS games and went to back to back Finals. Then they ADDED a prime Kevin Durant. They SHOULD have won however many titles they played healthy. And it shouldn’t have been close. And yet they still almost lost in 2018 and would have lost if not for a CP3 injury. How did any mortal team come close to challenging them? To me, this tells me that the sum was not greater than the parts and a lot of that does fly in the face of the Curry narrative of him being this ultra portable player whose gravity gives everyone open looks and leads to an unstoppable offense. They were clearly stoppable after just one year of looking invincible.

And the Warriors offense had serious struggles in 2015 and 2016, when they had a “normal” contender.

Idk, I can’t look at their accomplishments from 2017-2019 and really feel all that impressed by anything, because it was so expected and SHOULD have been the case. That was such an unusually stacked team. When Curry was on a “typical” contender, he led the best RS team of all time that looked pretty unimpressive in the playoffs. If you want to blame injuries, then look at their comparable team from the year before...they won the title, but they didn’t exactly look all that impressive doing it, at least on the offensive side of the ball.

So when people say, look at Curry’s INCREDIBLE 5 year run...eh, I really only see a 2 year run where I can accurately judge him, and that wasn’t really what I would call “impressive” relative to the competition he has around this spot. I think having CP3 and Curry at a similar level as far as peak is fair, in which case CP3 has clearly superior longevity. It’s not an indefensible position at all.

Unless you want to just ring count and MVP count, and go with popular narratives, then have at it, put Curry in the top 10.

k realbig, I'll bite:

You just used Curry winning 140 games in 2 regular seasons against him like it was some kind of bad thing. Think about that. In all the time you and I have known each other, THIS team was the best thing we ever saw. And you're managing to look at what they did and hang disappointment around the fulcrum of all that. And you're not the only one. There's a skeptical wind blowing on Curry and I'm amazed at how many smart, knowledgeable posters are swept up in it.

If you're honest, you know what you're doing is damning Curry for falling short of something. And what is that something? Logically, it's got to be the 2016 finals. I understand you can point to more than one series and say Curry wasn't an absolute machine, but were you talking like this after the Warriors came back and eliminated the Thunder? Doubtful. 5 years, his team went 18-2 in playoff series, and in the 2nd loss (Toronto) his play was fantastic. So really what you're doing is knocking him for going 18-2 instead of 19-1 because that other loss was just so, so bad, right?

Curry's stats in that series? 22.6 PPG as the team's leading scorer, on 58.0 TS%. He was 27 at the time.

Not the best you'd ever hope to see of course - that's why it's the worst of Curry's 5 finals appearances, but how damning is it?

LeBron in 2011 went for only 17.8 PPG as the team's 3rd leading scorer, and so on 54.1 TS%. He was 26 at the time. Guess CP3's on a similar level to LeBron too. Man, isn't it great the way CP3 keeps moving up in the world through argumentation on RealGM? I feel like if I go on bkref right now I'm going to experience the Mandela Effect and learn all about the Clippers' dynasty.

Apologies for the snark. I'm frustrated.

I just think it's important that when we're looking to damn Curry as lacking the ability to be a true alpha getting the most out of his team we should remember we're doing this because of one disappointing series that was nowhere near as bad as one we saw LeBron have at roughly the same age.

I would suggest to you and everyone else that you're all more skeptical of Curry than his playoff performances actually warrant, and that there are reasons for this that go straight to what Curry looks like as a player. A dude who looks like Curry can't be THAT good right? We're looking for evidence of his diminutive frame to say "See, he's no MJ, no LeBron, no KD...", and when we find it, we tend to run with it.

Am I saying Curry's always performed as well as was hoped? Nope, only that people are holding it against Curry more than they do most because of his atraditional rise to prominence. There's a strong pull to see him as a gimmick, and so we don't give him the benefit of the doubt we do with the guys who actually look like superheroes.

Clearly my words aren't persuading anyone so we can just leave it for now, but I hope people chew on it at least.

My post wasn't intended to get under your skin...but I was frustrated as well since I strongly disagreed with some of your framing, so I apologize if there was some snark sensed in my post as well.

I think I need to remind people that I was just as big of a supporter of Curry as anyone during the 2016 season and even during the 2017 season when everyone was on the Durant bandwagon. I had a post on the GB stating that his 2016 season was the GOAT peak, I was accused of "white knighting" for him whenever he had a bad game and I tried to put it in context, and I got into arguments with my fellow LeBron fans because I backed 2016 Curry over peak LeBron at that point, and firmly stated that he had taken over as the best player in the game.

But there was a track record that couldn't be ignored. It wasn't just the 2016 Finals. It was the 2015 series against Memphis. It was the 2015 Finals against Cleveland. It was the 2016 WCF against OKC. It was the 2016 Finals against Cleveland. And I still gave him a pass for all of that. And I still had his back in 2017 when Durant was getting all the press. And they dominated their way through the playoffs, the general basketball world felt that Durant was the best player in the world now, and although I was back on the LeBron bandwagon (yes, mainly because of what he accomplished in 2016 relative to Curry, and how he performed despite being significantly outmatched in 2017), Curry was my #2 and I had no doubts of taking him over Durant.

But then 2018 happened, and the Warriors barely hung on due to a couple of lucky breaks against an outmatched Rockets team, and Curry in general did not play that well in the playoffs. Once again, the GS offense underachieved. It became more of a pattern, and 2017 looked like the aberration. Yes, he performed great in 2019 after Durant went down, and in context, their offensive performance was very good...but it was another non-dominant offensive run.

Really changed my mind once I started looking at team offensive performance over the years with the best player on the court. Just to see who was consistently leading dominant PS offenses in the modern era, because that's really the starting point for where we start considering the best offensive anchors right? And Curry is simply absent from the top of the list outside of 1 year, and that's the year where, yes, we have to look at Durant's contributions and wonder how important he was to that showing, even if Curry was still the engine of the team. And even together, they still failed to produce a historic offense in the 2018 and 2019 PS. IMO, it's really not a good look, and if we're being consistent, these were the same criticisms directed at LeBron and Wade for not being the right fits and not leading an ideal offense...and yet they did better in the 2012-2014 PS offensively than any of Curry's Warriors teams from 2015-2019 outside of 2017.

And then coupled with the fact that overall, Draymond Green has always been right there with Curry in terms of being the team's MVP, and that the team without Curry has clearly demonstrated that they're so much more than just Curry's supporting cast, it really feels like the overall team performance is being overly credited to Curry, and that the offensive side of the ball, which is definitely where Curry has been their MVP, is where the team has underachieved most consistently, so how does he not get knocked down a peg? Or at the very least, how does this warrant elevating him to offensive GOAT status?

Feels like a lot of hand-waving away of the legit holes in his game that has led to clearly inferior offensive performance to real offensive GOATs like LeBron and Nash, simply because the team overall was so good...in my humble opinion.