Curry’s health in 2016 playoffs comes back regularly in our discussions and some people use it as explanation of his poor performance in the finals. I think it’s invalid and I will show why. To do so, I will cover 3 types of arguments: quotes, stats/performance on the court and visual analysis of his movement.
1. QuotesFirst of all,
during interview in September Steph said “I wasn't 100 percent, but who cares? I was playing”.
That’s often quoted as proof of him being injured/hurt/not 100%, but how much value something like that has? “ Not 100%” might refer to so many things, not necessary to the injury from Rockets series. I mean, who after 82 games season and 3 playoffs rounds is 100% in the NBA? That’s also one of the reasons why LeBron is so great, that after playing 5 straight finals he was still able to sustain great level in his 6th appearance in a row.
In preparation to this post I’ve gone through every ESPN’s game recap and Curry’s postgame interviews from G4 vs POR to G7 vs CLE and I noticed a pattern, that when he and Warriors played well, then no one talked about injury. But when struggles occurred “hurt excuse” popped out at once.
After G4 vs POR there was talk about him being rusty at the beginning, but as Thompson said "You knew he'd catch his rhythm eventually" and Curry in postgame interview said that breathing (so probably conditioning) was his biggest concern, not a word about knee.
During G1 vs OKC Aldridge reported that „His knee hasn't really gotten much better, on the other hand he said it hasn't gotten much worse. Basically, he said, we are past the point when pain can slow things down, but it's still there.” After the game Curry said, that he can manage just fine and it's about "pain tolerance going forward”. So looks like no mechanical issues, which would limit his movement.
After G2: "When I get open shots, obviously the confidence is there to knock them down. It's been like that since I've been back. My body's catching up, and I think I'm there."
After G4 Thunder taken 3-1 led and there was talk about Curry
playing at 70%, but Kerr rebutted it:
Kerr dismissed a Yahoo! Sports report that quoted a non-Warriors source as saying Curry is playing at 70 percent. "Is that 'sources with knowledge of the team's thinking?' " Kerr asked Wednesday afternoon. "Nobody has said anything about Steph being 70 percent to me. Training staff, relatives, friends, sources with knowledge of the team's thinking -- nobody has told me he's 70 percent. Evidently they told the media but not me."
"I know he's not injured -- if he were injured, he would not be playing," Kerr said. "Is he bothered a little bit, perhaps by the layoff when he went three weeks without a game? He may not be quite where he needs to be, but it's not an injury, and that's the important thing."
(…)
"He's not injured," Kerr said. "He's coming back from the knee, but he's not injured. He just had a lousy night. It happens, even to the best players in the world.""
Curry himself also told reporters, that his knee is fine.
Then he played great in 3 elimination games in a row and no one talked about him being limited by injury. No such talk in first two games in the finals too. In G1 he had bad shooting night and in postgame reporter asked him if it was off night or Cavs defense - no word about injury. Similar story for the rest of the series, just a couple of times was asked about health and always answered "I'm fine", until G7 when he said:
"There isn't any surgery or anything in my future this summer. I need to get healthier, but there is no excuses for what happened on the floor," Curry said. "I was out there, ready to play. I had some good games, I had some bad games. And that's it. I'll come back stronger next season and be ready to go."
Overall through whole playoffs neither Curry nor Kerr suggested, that Steph was injured and Steve even gone as far as directly saying he wasn’t. Of course they might lied, because they didn’t want to us it as excuse, but he as well he might lied in September by saying he wasn’t 100%.
2. Performance on the courtIf injury from series vs Rockets affected him in the finals, then the same should apply to WC playoffs, e.g. if player isn’t 100%, then he might have one game, when he is on fire, but not many of them and if this health issue was serious, then we should see it in his worse performance. But if he was playing bad just against one opponent and on better level vs 2 others, then more likely is that one team was simply better at defending him.
Let’s start from looking at pure box score production. Game score is poor metric to evaluate impact, but it describes box score quite well, so I will use it. “SD” means standard deviation and I included it to check if Curry’s performance was inconsistent, because if it was, then it indeed might suggest health issues - but also foul trouble or blowouts and that’s why there’s also GmSc per 36 minutes:
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SERIES G GmSc SD MPG GmSc/36
13DEN 6 20,5 8,9 40,0 18,5
13SAS 6 14,1 8,4 42,8 11,9
14LAC 7 18,3 8,5 42,3 15,6
15NOP 4 24,0 7,8 39,8 21,7
15MEM 6 17,6 4,8 38,3 16,5
15HOU 5 24,7 7,2 36,8 24,2
15CLE 6 17,9 8,0 42,5 15,2
16HOU 2 10,5 10,5 19,5 19,4
16POR 2 26,2 1,8 37,0 25,5
16OKC 7 20,9 7,0 36,7 20,5
16CLE 7 13,1 8,2 35,1 13,4
So from boxscore perspective 2016 vs CLE was one of two worst series of his career, however raw GmSc is inflated by two ~30 pts blowouts (G2 +33 & 25 min; G3 -30 & 31 min) and in previous years he also didn’t play much in similar one sided games (14LAC G2 -40: &31 min, 15HOU G3 +35 & 35 min, 15OKC G2 +27 & 30 min; G3 -28 & 30 min), so it’s something normal for him, not caused by injury. He also had foul trouble in games 2 and 7, so if we want to adjust for these two factors, then looking at per 36 would be better and thus this series doesn’t seem that bad anymore, as 13SAS was slightly worse and several others not much better (14LAC, 15MEM, 15 CLE).
Second important thing to note here is that WCF vs OKC was one of his best series ever (and vs POR is the best!). Would he be able to play at so high level if he was injured? Keep also in mind that in 3 straight eliminations games he played at level not many players ever played in “win or go home” situation.
Anyway, from pure boxscore standpoint it looks like from G4 vs POR to G7 vs OKC he played the best playoff basketball of his life. That’s almost a month, so a lot of time to expose injury if there was any. But that didn’t happen and his performance decreased only then, when he faced Cavs, team against which he also struggled before. So what is more likely: that he was injured or that Cleveland (with LeBron in GOAT mode also on defensive end) defended him better than around average Thunder and Blazers defenses?
Other thing we can measure and which can show us if player was healthy or not is defense. Here’s one picture after WCF G5:
If you are hurt, then you don't play so good defense vs so athletic freak like Westbrook. Also his BLK% and TRB% were career best in 2016 playoffs, so it suggests his athleticism was as good as ever. Or look at his side to side movement (a lot of gifs, so I’m hiding them in spoiler tag):
Irving made the shot in second play, but Stephen moved very well, doesn’t look like his knee was bothered by any issues and that stop in transition in first clip is something you can’t do with bad knee. Defense on Durant also shows good side to side movement.
Besides look at SportVU data:
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YEAR DFGA DFG% DIFF
17RS 9,2 43,1 -1,4
16PO 9,8 42,4 -3,4
16RS 10,8 40,1 -3,2
15PO 9,2 38,3 -4,5
15RS 9,8 40,5 -2,8
14PO 11,6 44,4 -2,0
14RS 9,8 42,9 -1,4
Yes, his DFG% is worse than in RS or in 2015, but it not necessary means he was injured, because it might be caused by defending better shooters. What matters is DIFF and Curry looks very good here, what is also consistent with his defense on Westbrook. High volume of DFGA (with quite low MPG) is very telling too, because if he would be hurt, then we would expect Kerr to hide him on defense as much as possible – but that didn’t happen and his defensive volume was as high as usually with similar effectiveness (DIFF).
SportVU also provides speed and distance data:
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YEAR DIST. MILES AVG SPEED
17RS 2,48 4,43
16PO 2,45 4,30
16RS 2,44 4,26
15PO 2,85 4,34
15RS 2,38 4,37
14PO 2,93 4,14
14RS 2,56 4,22
So 16PO looks slightly better than 16RS and if he was playing with injury/not being 100%, then opposite should happen.
And one more stats based thing. Curry struggled in the finals not because he was injured, but because Cavs defended him so well and in a way we could see it, when we check how he performed vs different Cleveland's defenders (data from 6 games, don't have numbers from G7): vs Irving he had 66% eFG (with 28 FGA) and 49% vs everyone else. So against Kyrie he wasn't hurt and was when LeBron or Shump were defending him...?
3. Visual impressionsI have seen arguments, that Curry’s side to side movement was limited because of that knee injury and that’s why he performed worse vs Cle and for example didn’t drive by Lowe in G7.
So first of all it’s not like he wasn’t ever stopped by big man:
But what’s more important Curry choosing to shot pull up three/long 2 over big instead of driving in the paint is his typical play. He did it hundreds of times in his career and also quite often after coming back from that injury, so in no way it’s a sign, that he wasn’t 100%):
Those plays show, that his side to side movement was as good as ever, that he haven’t had problems to get separation and good (by his standards
) looks vs every starting big he faced in last two playoffs series. And when he wanted to he attacked the rim too:
Last set of gifs to better show how good was his side to side movement:
I really could post more of such gifs, but this post is already too big, so I hope it’s enough to show the point. Well, maybe one more - look at his dunk made before finals G7:
Player with bad knee doesn’t do such things.
Finally, no injury caused him to make biggest basketball mistake of his life:
As some of you know I think Curry's '16 regular season was arguably the best RS ever, so it's not like I hate him. But at the same time I can't agree with assumption, that injury was the reason why he played so bad in the finals. I showed above why I think he was ok physically and my explanation of his performance is, that Cavs defense simply was good at defending him and because of that they messed with his head too (for example foul trouble or trash talking with LJ is sign of that). That's why he played worse and made such nonchalant plays as this behind the back pass.
