What the hell are we doing here people? It’s four days into 2021 and we have to defend Steph Curry against people like this dumb fuck, are you kidding me? Dudes like this who would airball 10-10 NBA threes came out of the Twitter woodwork on Friday after Steph’s once dominant Warriors were destroyed at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers, making me angrier than Tony Perkis just trying to shoot a god damn weight loss infomercial .
Damian Lillard piled more dirt on Steph’s grave with his postgame comments suggesting that Curry is struggling this season because he’s not getting the easy, wide open shots that he was accustomed to during the Warriors dynasty. Sobering words from the guy who is currently on the verge of taking Steph’s place as the new Steph Curry of the NBA.
Well the executive producer of Holey Moley read your dumbass tweets apparently (congratulations) because he went full Super Saiyan during Sunday night’s rematch going for a career high 62 points and blasted the Blazers 137-122.
The Steph slander mostly revolved around the oft quoted bad take that Chef Curry is the greatest shooter of all-time by far, but when it comes to true impact on the game, he’s much farther down the list and can’t ultimately be compared to the real greats like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Allen Iverson of all people.
First of all, Iverson, really? Nobody was a bigger Iverson fan than 12-year-old me wearing Iverson’s Reebok Answer IVs and bricking 10+ shots a game, but he’s somewhere between the 35th and 60th best player of all-time, so he’s not even close to the Steph Curry conversation. People 5-10 years older than me bringing up AI in all-time conversations have the same energy as anyone 5-10 years younger than me arguing that Carmelo Anthony is actually one of the inner circle greatest players ever. Yea, sounds pretty dumb doesn’t it?
Next let’s look at Steph’s resume next to LeBron, Kobe, and I’ll throw in Durant to compare the four best wing players of their generations.
Steph Curry:
705 games 23.6ppg 6.6apg 4.5rpg 47.6FG% 43.4 3P% 90.7FT% 63.3TS% 23.9PER 104WS 50.7 VORP
3x NBA Champion, 2x NBA MVP, 6x All-Star, 3x First Team All-NBA, 2x Second Team, 1x Third Team
Kevin Durant:
855 games 27ppg 4.1apg 7.1rpg 49.3FG% 38.1 3P% 88.3FT% 61.3TS% 25.2PER 142.8WS 69VORP
2x NBA Champion, 1x NBA MVP, 2x Finals MVP, 10x All-Star, 6x First Team All-NBA, 3x Second Team
Kobe Bryant:
1346 games 25ppg 4.7apg 5.2rpg 44.7FG% 32.9 3P% 83.7FG% 55TS% 22.9PER 172.7WS 80.1VORP
5x NBA Champion, 1x NBA MVP, 2x Finals MVP, 18x All-Star, 11x First Team All-NBA, 2x Second Team, 2x Third Team
LeBron James:
1272 games 27ppg 7.4apg 7.4rpg 50.3FG% 34.4 3P% 73.4FT% 58.6TS% 27.5PER 237.4WS 133.7VORP
4x NBA Champion, 4x NBA MVP, 4x Finals MVP, 16x All-Star, 13x First Team All-NBA, 2x Second Team, 1x Third Team
A few things jump out here: Kobe and LeBron far outpace Curry and Durant in games played, which is why the counting stats like win shares and all-star appearances are so far ahead. The other is that Curry totally belongs in this conversation with these three absolute giants of NBA history in LeBron, Kobe, and Durant. Obviously LeBron is regarded as the first, or for most people, second best player in history with Kobe somewhere in the top 10, and both Durant and Curry not far behind.
One interesting note not seen in the stats is how interconnected these generational talents are. Steph Curry is the sole reason why Durant is a two-time champion, and also the reason why LeBron James is not a seven-time champion, while conversly, Durant and James are the reason why Curry did not win five championships in a row. Curry’s Warriors beat LeBron’s newly formed super team in Cleveland with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in 2015. Durant joined the 73-win Warriors who were fresh off of blowing a 3-1 lead to LeBron’s Cavs in the 2016 NBA Finals. Curry and Durant then teamed up for two of the most pre-ordained back-to-back championships in NBA history in 2017 and 2018. The next year the Warriors were once again the favorite the three-peat, and if not for Durant going down in game 5 of the 2019 Finals against the Raptors, Curry and Golden State could have been the first team to five-peat since Bill Russell’s ’60s Celtics teams. Curry is very arguably the most important player in the NBA in the past 10 years.
The really annoying part about some of the online trash being spewed about Steph’s legacy is that according to online numbskulls, Curry by himself doesn’t make a bad team good, as LeBron and Kobe and other greats would do. They’d take the crappy group of players on their back deep into the playoffs, something Curry apparently has proven that he can’t do, except that’s totally wrong.
Yes the Warriors sucked last year but apparently we all forgot that Curry broke his hand four games in and missed all but one game the rest of the season. So are we judging him because they were 1-3 in those four games with losses to the Clippers, OKC and Phoenix? Or the fact that the Warriors started this season 2-3 before his 62-point eruption? Is that what we’re doing now, saying an absolute baller has proven time and again that he is incapable of dragging a shitty team to a respectable record all by himself because he’s 3-6 the last two seasons? The Fucking Timberwolves were 10-8 last year before going 5-37 to end the season. Who gives a shit what anyone does in any nine game span, especially at the beginning of the season. Or, god forbid, does this argument hinge on the first three years of his career in which the Warriors won 26, 36, and 23 games respectively? If that’s the case we’re going to need a new internet because I will go full fucking Network on everyone’s online asses. Who fucking cares if Golden State struggled in his first three seasons, when he was struggling through injuries and was no where near his prime? Do we forget that Kobe lead the lakers to all of 34 wins the year after Shaq was traded? If the Warriors are 12-34 at some point in March and Steph looks terrible, ok yea maybe he was just a shooter all these years, until that happens let’s all shut the hell up and enjoy his greatness for one god damn minute.
Lastly any argument that begins with the phrase “well if he had come around 10 years earlier he wouldn’t jack up 12 threes a game, or if he was 10 years later people would be ready for the three-point barrage” are made by people who know nothing about basketball. Guess what assholes, Steph Curry was drafted in 2009, as a Timberwolves I’ll never forget it. You don’t get to play that hypothetical bullshit and assume he wouldn’t fit into another era, and therefore he’s not actually that good. This is like saying that if Michael Jordan was playing today he would suck because he couldn’t shoot threes, or Bill Russell would be a benchwarmer today because he was 6’9″. Not sure if we know this, but I’m sad to say that here in 2021, we don’t have fucking time machines so until it’s possible to pluck Bill Russell out of 1962 and put him on the current Washington Wizards and see if he’s actually a better player than Rui Hachimura, let’s leave these guys in their era and assume any hall of famer would adapt to play to the style of the time.
The 2021 NBA season is two weeks old and for the love of god can we wait a month until we make gigantic assumptions about the state of one of the two greatest players of his generation, and a top-15 player all-time? Nobody is saying he’s better than LeBron, Kobe, or even Durant, but god dammit if he isn’t well ahead of Allen Iverson you twats (had to get some British insults in here). If you think anyone has impacted the game more than Steph Curry over the last decade, then you truly haven’t been paying attention.
Dunking on Oxford 