Curry vs Oscar

[durantbird]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

[migya]

Robertson was great start to finish, his numbers are look unreal. Curry won't reach him.

[70sFan]

Still Oscar, but peak-wise they are comparable.

[eminence]

I slightly prefer Curry at peak/prime, but career is still Oscar for me. Oscar had at a minimum 11 very high level seasons, compared to 9 for Curry. Add in a little more durability, and that's approximately a 25% lead if they were similar level players in prime. I prefer Curry, but not to near that extent. Oscar with a tad more value outside of those major value seasons for me too, but that's more of a tiebreaker.

I could certainly see Curry catching him, and may even expect him to at this point (first time I've really thought that, and would put Curry on the fringe of my top 10), but it's possible Oscar stays ahead.

[Doctor MJ]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

[Cavsfansince84]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

I think this approach is fine but I'm just not fully convinced he/Steph was a top 5 guy in each of those seasons. Even in this current season I feel like its really his playoffs that put him into that discussion and he didn't do much in 2013 or 2014 playoffs wise to really cement himself. Maybe this applies to some of the other guys you he's being compared to but I think it would be to less of a degree.

[SickMother]

I've got them both in the 9-12 tier on my list, so last guys in/first guys out of the Top Ten.

Obviously Oscar has the superior all around game & longevity, but Steph's shooting more or less changed the course of the entire league & he's helmed a dynasty that has put up the best regular season (73-9) and postseason (16-1) of all time.

Go back & forth between the two, but have been leaning Curry more & more lately.

[eminence]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

Just curious which season from ‘61-‘71 you have Oscar out of the top 5. Thanks Doc

[Lou Fan]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

You think Curry was top 5 in 2013? If so I'd love to hear more on why.

[eminence]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

You think Curry was top 5 in 2013? If so I'd love to hear more on why.

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

[Doctor MJ]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

I think this approach is fine but I'm just not fully convinced he/Steph was a top 5 guy in each of those seasons. Even in this current season I feel like its really his playoffs that put him into that discussion and he didn't do much in 2013 or 2014 playoffs wise to really cement himself. Maybe this applies to some of the other guys you he's being compared to but I think it would be to less of a degree.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion but some thoughts:

- If you don't see the 2013 playoffs performance by Curry as a big thing, I question whether you remember how it was at the time. Again, you can disagree with the assessments of others, but if you're just looking at Curry and thinking "He didn't do much in the playoffs", you're missing something.

- In 2014, he also looked excellent in the playoffs. They lost in the first round so it makes sense that that performance wouldn't make him rise in the playoffs compared to the regular season...but he was awesome in the regular season.

- And ftr, I had Curry as Top 3 in this regular season. I know that most didn't and that's fine, but his impact was huge for the Warriors over the entirety of it.

Re: Maybe this applies less to other guys. All I'll say is that I used the same process for each as I went through each year separately in detail while purposefully not counting up numbers like these until the very end.

[Doctor MJ]

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

You think Curry was top 5 in 2013? If so I'd love to hear more on why.

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

Thanks eminence.

Yeah, one of the things that's been pretty surprising to me over time is how the PC Board has gone from being close to the first place on the internet to call Curry a Top 5 player - cuz it's not just me doing that in that vote - to a place that ranks Curry lower than most other places. I don't have my head entirely around how that happened.

[Doctor MJ]

For some reason haven't found such discussion (maybe I didn't search good enough?). Anyhow, what are your arguments for one over the other historically?

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

Just curious which season from ‘61-‘71 you have Oscar out of the top 5. Thanks Doc

'69-70. I'll also note that Oscar finished Top 5 in MVP the same 10 years I did, and in '69-70 he got .001 Share from the voters, which I'd tend to look as a token 5th place vote from a hometown voters - though I must acknowledge I don't know that to be a fact.

This was a year where the Royals weren't just a below average team, but were below average on offense. It was also the debut of their new coach Bob Cousy, who, to put it mildly, didn't seem to understand coaching the game as well as his backcourt mate Bill Sharman.

[Lou Fan]

You think Curry was top 5 in 2013? If so I'd love to hear more on why.

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

Thanks eminence.

Yeah, one of the things that's been pretty surprising to me over time is how the PC Board has gone from being close to the first place on the internet to call Curry a Top 5 player - cuz it's not just me doing that in that vote - to a place that ranks Curry lower than most other places. I don't have my head entirely around how that happened.

I haven't been active in a while but I always remember PC board being very pro Curry. I've noticed it's flipped almost to the point of what I would call an anti Curry agenda. It seems a lot of PC board preferences have changed over the years.

[Doctor MJ]

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

Thanks eminence.

Yeah, one of the things that's been pretty surprising to me over time is how the PC Board has gone from being close to the first place on the internet to call Curry a Top 5 player - cuz it's not just me doing that in that vote - to a place that ranks Curry lower than most other places. I don't have my head entirely around how that happened.

I haven't been active in a while but I always remember PC board being very pro Curry. I've noticed it's flipped almost to the point of what I would call an anti Curry agenda. It seems a lot of PC board preferences have changed over the years.

I'd very reluctant to call it an "agenda". I think people are coming to their conclusions through a process that's managing to differ from the process that people were using at the time despite using much of the same statistical techniques, and that's very interesting.

I do think that one difference is that the folks voting in '12-13 were thinking about '12-13 whereas those who are lower on Curry right now tend to be very focused on the '15-16 & '16-17 finals.

[falcolombardi]

You think Curry was top 5 in 2013? If so I'd love to hear more on why.

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

Thanks eminence.

Yeah, one of the things that's been pretty surprising to me over time is how the PC Board has gone from being close to the first place on the internet to call Curry a Top 5 player - cuz it's not just me doing that in that vote - to a place that ranks Curry lower than most other places. I don't have my head entirely around how that happened.

most places rank stars mainly off ring counting, offensive numbers and recency bias and how cool they look on offense

all of which curry does very well in, is it really a surprise that when he got all his rings common perception about curry shot up and went even higher thsn real gm?

he ranks very highly with most basketball fans for roughly the same reasons kobe does for example and a lot of people have him even higher thsn curry and as a top 5 or top 3 ever guy

this is not to say the average/"casual" fans are necesarrily wrong in ranking curry so highly, but explaining how they suddendly went so high on curry that they left pc board in the dust

[Doctor MJ]

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

Thanks eminence.

Yeah, one of the things that's been pretty surprising to me over time is how the PC Board has gone from being close to the first place on the internet to call Curry a Top 5 player - cuz it's not just me doing that in that vote - to a place that ranks Curry lower than most other places. I don't have my head entirely around how that happened.

most places rank stars mainly off ring counting, offensive numbers and recency bias and how cool they look on offense

all of which curry does very well in, is it really a surprise that when he got all his rings common perception about curry shot up and went even higher thsn real gm?

he ranks very highly with most basketball fans for roughly the same reasons kobe does for example and a lot of people have him even higher thsn curry and as a top 5 or top 3 ever guy

this is not to say the average/"casual" fans are necesarrily wrong in ranking curry so highly, but explaining how they suddendly went so high on curry that they left pc board in the dust

I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't see the PC Board actually dropping its collective opinion of him. As I've said, it's so, so, so common among folks here to have their sense of Curry anchored in the perception that he failed as an alpha and to have no memory of the Warriors coming back in series, beating teams they weren't supposed to, and not remembering big performances.

Let me also say: It's not just the PC Board that I've seen this. It's become vogue among the major podcasters who are quite competent with analytics too. So that's all the more reason that I don't think this is about an anti-Curry agenda, so much as a matter of what moments are forming the starting points for how Curry is evaluated.

[eminence]

So, as I'm seeing Curry being put up against these old greats, it makes me feel like sharing how many seasons I have each guy as having a Top 5 season, to give a better sense of longevity differences.

So, Curry against the original 4 outliers among perimeter-oriented players by that metric:

Magic 11
Oscar 10
West 9
Curry 9 (which includes '21-22)
Bird 8

This certainly doesn't mean that Curry is necessarily higher than Bird, but in terms of how long each player was able to keep up those Top 5-type years, I think Curry at this point is basically in the ballpark with the rest.

Just curious which season from ‘61-‘71 you have Oscar out of the top 5. Thanks Doc

'69-70. I'll also note that Oscar finished Top 5 in MVP the same 10 years I did, and in '69-70 he got .001 Share from the voters, which I'd tend to look as a token 5th place vote from a hometown voters - though I must acknowledge I don't know that to be a fact.

This was a year where the Royals weren't just a below average team, but were below average on offense. It was also the debut of their new coach Bob Cousy, who, to put it mildly, didn't seem to understand coaching the game as well as his backcourt mate Bill Sharman.

That one seems fair, team didn't take well to Cousy's attempt to speed them up it seems. Lucas trade towards the start of the season looks pretty terrible in retrospect, but hard to know what was going on in the locker room from this far away.

[jalengreen]

You think Curry was top 5 in 2013? If so I'd love to hear more on why.

Doc's vote is on page 2 of this thread for thoughts at the time: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1258357&start=40

Wound up winning the #4 spot for the year. Bit of a down year certainly helped with that.

Thanks eminence.

Yeah, one of the things that's been pretty surprising to me over time is how the PC Board has gone from being close to the first place on the internet to call Curry a Top 5 player - cuz it's not just me doing that in that vote - to a place that ranks Curry lower than most other places. I don't have my head entirely around how that happened.

Definitely the thing that surprised me the most coming here.

I think part of it may be a lack of recency bias. I see a lot of top point guard lists leaving off Oscar altogether and a lot of talk about Curry/KD being 12/13 on all-time lists behind the "usual 11" with no regard for guys like Oscar/West, other top 15 guys, etc. Not that you can't rank Curry above them - they just so often become an afterthought. A lot of NBA fans really don't care about NBA history further back than a certain date. The Magic v. Curry arguments for GOAT PG started years ago back when I think career valuations would suggest that Oscar was clearly ahead. On the other hand, it's also possible to have the opposite of a recency bias and sort of be more demanding of current players.

i.e. the PC board might favor analytics more than the average fan and might view older players higher than the average fan - resulting in appreciating Curry earlier in his career (as analytics certainly did) while not having him quite as high in an all-time perspective.

Again, not to suggest that one perspective is more "correct."

[Cavsfansince84]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion but some thoughts:

- If you don't see the 2013 playoffs performance by Curry as a big thing, I question whether you remember how it was at the time. Again, you can disagree with the assessments of others, but if you're just looking at Curry and thinking "He didn't do much in the playoffs", you're missing something.

- In 2014, he also looked excellent in the playoffs. They lost in the first round so it makes sense that that performance wouldn't make him rise in the playoffs compared to the regular season...but he was awesome in the regular season.

- And ftr, I had Curry as Top 3 in this regular season. I know that most didn't and that's fine, but his impact was huge for the Warriors over the entirety of it.

Re: Maybe this applies less to other guys. All I'll say is that I used the same process for each as I went through each year separately in detail while purposefully not counting up numbers like these until the very end.

I think part of the problem is that some guys get debated so much that people state their opinions regarding them over and over and see some criticisms or w/e that they think are unfair and might get overly attached to opinions in the process. I don't have much of any attachment to how Steph is viewed here or anywhere else. So I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I just try to look at things from all angles and be fair in whatever methods I am using. I also think people get caught up in the moment year after year on message boards.