OT: I was wrong about Steph Curry

[Dogdeacon]

Curry averaged 26, 6, and 5 on 44/39/89 and was +52 for the series. Slightly worse shooting numbers than normal (but considerably better shooting than Lebron in the series).

If you are going to argue that Curry was more valuable than LeBron in finals I believe that's a biased opinion and there is no point continuing. If that same Cavs team (no Love and no Irving) played this year's Warriors I'd be shocked if it went 5 games. LeBron single-handedly kept them in the finals and they had puncher's chance with a vastly inferior roster.

 

[auror]

If you are going to argue that Curry was more valuable than LeBron in finals I believe that's a biased opinion and there is no point continuing. If that same Cavs team (no Love and no Irving) played this year's Warriors I'd be shocked if it went 5 games. LeBron single-handedly kept them in the finals and they had puncher's chance with a vastly inferior roster.

That answer was in response to a different quote about Curry rising to the occasion in the Finals.

 

[Dogdeacon]

That answer was in response to a different quote about Curry rising to the occasion in the Finals.

Cool, I think we are getting to a tipping point between LeBron and Curry. If he stays healthy Curry easily collects his 2nd MVP and IF Curry plays in the postseason like he's been playing in the regular season (incidentally the Warriors are taking everyone's best shot and treating the reg season very seriously) and LeBron plays the same or worse than last postseason, then Curry will vault over LeBron in my eyes.
Kind of a qualified admission of the Curry side. Curry is playing better right now, I think who is the better player is ultimately determined when the stakes get higher.

 

[PcketknfNiels]

Google it.

I did.

 

[PcketknfNiels]

You think the lump sum already takes taxes into account? That explains so much about your basketball related posts.

My analysis is subjective, as is anybody else's. However, the way the lottery is taxed is written in terms anyone should be able to understand. A few members on here seem to have problems understanding how tax rates work, that explains so much about so many people's basketball related posts.

 

[KingOPancakes]

My analysis is subjective, as is anybody else's. However, the way the lottery is taxed is written in terms anyone should be able to understand. A few members on here seem to have problems understanding how tax rates work, that explains so much about so many people's basketball related posts.

Your willingness to stick to your guns no matter the evidence presented to you and with absolutely no evidence backing you up is something I really admire. It's hard not to imagine you at your computer with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears going "la la la la la". You must be an absolute delight to have a conversation with in real life.

 

[superjohn]

Oh. Right now?
Sure, there's an argument to be made that Curry, at this moment in time, is a more valuable (better) player than LeBron.

Curry will have to have about 10 more years like the last one and a half years before the conversation starts about which is better, in the aggregate.

I don't buy that you thought the discussion was about who had the better career or who was better nine years ago, give me a break. Kemba Walker and 80% of the league is better than Kobe right now, that doesn't mean that Kemba and 80% of the league has always been better than Kobe.

 

[PcketknfNiels]

Yeah Curry has easily been the best player this year. Another point to think about is LeBron was pretty much a star in the league as an 18 year old, it took Curry a few years til he was about 25 to be at All Star level.

Steph has been on an upward trajectory to be sure, but he's been playing at a very high level from the moment he came into the league.

Curry didn't win an NBA championship ,the Warriors did,he has a great cast around him.
Put Curry on last year's Cleveland team without Lebron,and how far would he have carried them. Certainly not into the finals.

So who makes the finals out of the east last year then? I know there were many great teams to choose from, but who would have come out of that loaded field?

Kevin Love isn't really all star level consistently anymore, Kyrie is constantly injured and their bench is pretty bad. I wouldn't say this Cleveland team is an all star team.

Love put up 26-12 right before he went to Cleveland. He just slid into that Bosh role and his numbers went down as a result of getting less shots and not playing on the interior nearly as much.

I think alot of the reason why KLove is regressing is because he insists on being a corner specialist for some reason. And Kyrie still had a great season last year, he just got injured at the end and obviously hasn't been the same since, but he will be fine in a little time. About LeBron not making his teammates better like Curry does, how about all those Cleveland teams his first 7 season? Who were his best teammates? Mo Williams? Antwan Jamison? Daniel Gibson? He consistently averaged 5-7 assists and has been a great defender his whole career. He never had a team remotely near to what Curry has in his first stint with Cleveland.

It's not Love who insists on spotting up in the corner, it's the offensive scheme and something that Lebron wanted to carry over from Miami when he had Bosh doing it. Lebron also wasn't that good defensively until about 2008-09.

You're off the hook. You keep suggesting that LBJ "hand picked" his team, as if - even if true - that should count against him.
No Love and no Irving and no Verajao and one other guy was gimpy in the finals and he STILL took two games from your team. That is a monstrous accomplishment. He sure didn't hand pick Delavedova to be his starting point guard.

Curry has been in the league for 6 full seasons. The first three, his team made the playoffs ZERO times. DID . . . NOT . . . EVEN . . . MAKE . . . THE . . . PLAYOFFS. Further, he was 21 years old already when he came into the league. The next two years, he gets booted in the 2nd round and then booted in the 1st round. 1st round boot! GONE! In his first five seasons the guy only gets out of the 1st round one time, then promptly loses.

This strikes you as "great player who can carry his team?"

LeBron took a bunch of BUMS past the first round every year for his first six years. BUMS, I tell ya, BUMS. Here's the list from his first year:

Andriuskevicius, Martynas, Gooden, Drew, Graham, Stephen, Henderson, Alan, Hughes, Larry, Ilgauskas, Zydrunas, Jackson, Luke, Jones, Damon, Marshall, Donyell,Murray, Ronald Shaw, Newble, Ira, Pavlović, Aleksandar, Snow, Eric, Varejão, Anderson

Amazing.

Finally, take a hard look at Curry's stats from last year versus the previous two years, when his team got bounced in the 1st round and the 2nd round. They are virtually the same as they were last year. Point is, why was Curry not carrying his team past the 1st round if he is that awesome? Answer - he's not in the same echelon as a guy like LBJ. He finally made it out of the first round when he had a dominant team around him.
Guy has one - ONE - year's worth of success and people are comparing him to LBJ.

Boy, you sure do not understand how strength of conference works, huh?

That's right, Curry's defense is statistically similar to Larry Bird's. Great team defender, but Larry wasn't shutting anyone down mano-a-mano.

Lookit, I LOVE Curry and would much rather watch him than LeBron. Adding the qualifier that 'history' doesn't count whether its nine years ago, two years ago or last year's finals is essentially admitting that LeBron HAS been the better player. So the pro-Curry crowds wants desperately to dethrone LeBron and crown Curry's . We all know LeBron saves an extra gear for the playoffs and until Curry is the finals MVP he's simply hasn't demonstrated elevating his game on the biggest stage which is what LeBron, Kobe, Jordan etc have done to be the reigning king of the hill. It might even end up the Russell Westbrook or Durant is in this mix at year end. Certainly Westbrook head to head vs Curry is very close and there is a statistical case that Westbrook holds the advantage in these matchups. How can Curry be definitively the best player in the NBA when there is another player at his position that has eaten Curry's lunch at times?


http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=curryst01&p2=westbru01

That "extra gear" huh? Is that why Lebron is 2-4 in the finals?

 

[PcketknfNiels]

Your willingness to stick to your guns no matter the evidence presented to you and with absolutely no evidence backing you up is something I really admire. It's hard not to imagine you at your computer with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears going "la la la la la". You must be an absolute delight to have a conversation with in real life.

Do you have anything relevant to contribute to this thread? No? Well, we'll be seeing you later then.

 

[TasteofUConn]

That "extra gear" huh? Is that why Lebron is 2-4 in the finals?

No. That's why he even made it to 6 finals.

 

[PcketknfNiels]

No. That's why he even made it to 6 finals.

Nice. He makes it through a terrible conference and has actually won the whole thing 2 of the 6 times he's made the finals.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Better paint scorer? Really??? I get Curry gets all creative with his layups but LeBron can finish thru any type of contact, unlike Curry. Also passing wise, I've believed for a while, and it's not a very uncommon belief, that LeBron is one of if not the best passers in the league. He averaged the same assists as Curry from a Forward position. And we can argue that LeBron gets the ball whenever he wants, but he doesn't initiate the offense regularly like most point guards do. Just my opinion, but i think Curry's only advantage over LeBron is shooting, which admittedly is a very large advantage.

Part of the difference, which is implicit in Johns post, is that curry is held to the standard of a human being while Lebron is basically a freak of nature. That's really the only way you can say, for example, that curry is a better paint scorer. Lebron is in a different category.

 

[TasteofUConn]

Nice. He makes it through a terrible conference and has actually won the whole thing 2 of the 6 times he's made the finals.

I adore the "terrible conference" argument.
It's the same argument that was used against us when we won in '11 - very weak field, no other good teams, Butler was awful.

 

[KingOPancakes]

I adore the "terrible conference" argument.
It's the same argument that was used against us when we won in '11 - very weak field, no other good teams, Butler was awful.

Sort of the opposite argument, no? Lebron goes through an easier Eastern conference all year, and the first rounds of the playoffs before facing the big bad West in the finals... while 2011 UConn played in a conference that sent a record 11 teams to the tourney, and then went on a 10 game streak (8 of the opponents ranked in the top 25) before winning the NC against a lowly 8 seed?

 

[polycom]

Steph has been on an upward trajectory to be sure, but he's been playing at a very high level from the moment he came into the league.

This is factually incorrect. Please see the stats. He was good when he came into the league and then was injured...

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/curryst01.html#per_game::none

 

[PcketknfNiels]

I adore the "terrible conference" argument.
It's the same argument that was used against us when we won in '11 - very weak field, no other good teams, Butler was awful.

I adore that you think those 2 examples are remotely the same, or that winning a title in what could be described as a weak field is the same as using weak competition to make it to the title round only to lose.

Regardless, none of what you said was actually a defense or a counter to Lebron spending his entire career playing in a terrible conference.

 

[PcketknfNiels]

This is factually incorrect. Please see the stats. He was good when he came into the league and then was injured...

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/curryst01.html#per_game::none

I'm not sure how you think being injured 1 season makes his aggregate upward trajectory "factually incorrect". I swear some people on here are legitimately autistic.

 

[Kitaman]

Certainly Westbrook head to head vs Curry is very close and there is a statistical case that Westbrook holds the advantage in these matchups. How can Curry be definitively the best player in the NBA when there is another player at his position that has eaten Curry's lunch at times?


http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=curryst01&p2=westbru01

Just recognizing this post for bringing Westbrook in the conversation. Curry vs Westbrook would be an awesome matchup and I'm not sure who would have the edge. Westbrook is a bad !

 

[KingOPancakes]

Just recognizing this post for bringing Westbrook in the conversation. Curry vs Westbrook would be an awesome matchup and I'm not sure who would have the edge. Westbrook is a bad !

Next Saturday night (2/6). Circle it on your calendar.

 

[superjohn]

Part of the difference, which is implicit in Johns post, is that curry is held to the standard of a human being while Lebron is basically a freak of nature. That's really the only way you can say, for example, that curry is a better paint scorer. Lebron is in a different category.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/73720/the-big-number-steph-curry-paint-by-numbers No they are being held to the same standards, the whole point of the thread is to compare them for what's going on right now. Are you really trying to say that Lebron is having a better season than Curry? I don't even see how that's arguable.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/73720/the-big-number-steph-curry-paint-by-numbers No they are being held to the same standards, the whole point of the thread is to compare them for what's going on right now. Are you really trying to say that Lebron is having a better season than Curry? I don't even see how that's arguable.

Shooting a better percentage doesn't mean he is a better paint scorer. I guarantee LeBron gets alot more contact going to the rim than Curry, which obviously causes missed shots. Steph may be more creative with the way he puts spin on the ball and makes awkward layups, but you can't tell me he is a better paint scorer than LeBron.

 

[alfonse]

You are either very young or didn't watch much NBA during Ray's prime. Either way, you are wrong. In his prime Ray scored in all kinds of ways, while usually being guarded by the other team's best defensive player.

I love Ray and watched him from Uconn on. I remember a playoff game with the bucks where they were down 1 with the ball and like 8 seconds left. Ray blew by his guy and threw down a massive dunk for the win. I agree Ray scored in all sorts of ways. He used his quickness athleticism and jumping ability to create space and score. What he did not do was REGULARLY shoot 30 footers right in peoples face. Ray did not need much room to shoot those but he needed some. Just saying Curry is like nothing we have seen before. Ray was in the mold of Drexler and Jordan. Smartly he crafted his 3 point shooting to extend his career a great deal. To be honest in a game of horse with Curry right now and Ray in his shooting prime(Seattle?) Ray may beat him more than not. I read in NBA the art of the beautiful game that Rashard Lewis was lucky to win 2 games out of 100 in Horse with Ray. Anyway I was not hating on Ray, guy was sick. Just shocking to see the way Curry is playing now night in and out.

The shooting skill of these players is out of this world btw. On Vacation when I was young I saw Seattle play Phoenix at Phoenix. Seattle had the big 3, Chambers, Mcdaniel, and Dale Ellis. Phoenix who was nobody at the time had a young Jeff Hornacek and a rookie Kevin Johnson. Warming up I could not believe Dale Ellis. He set up at 3 and made like 10 in a row, then started bouncing the balls really high and shooting 3s of the catch and hitting every one. Anyway great game Phoenix pulled it out and a small guard named Kevin Johnson turned it on. Did not know who he was at the time but we all know what happened there. Sorry got a little sidetracked...

 

[superjohn]

Shooting a better percentage doesn't mean he is a better paint scorer. I guarantee LeBron gets alot more contact going to the rim than Curry, which obviously causes missed shots. Steph may be more creative with the way he puts spin on the ball and makes awkward layups, but you can't tell me he is a better paint scorer than LeBron.

I kind of just threw paint scorer in there because I think most people don't think of Curry scoring near the rim even though he's as efficient as anyone in the league at it. It's amazing at Curry's size how proficient he is in the paint.

 

[superjohn]

I love Ray and watched him from Uconn on. I remember a playoff game with the bucks where they were down 1 with the ball and like 8 seconds left. Ray blew by his guy and threw down a massive dunk for the win. I agree Ray scored in all sorts of ways. He used his quickness athleticism and jumping ability to create space and score. What he did not do was REGULARLY shoot 30 footers right in peoples face. Ray did not need much room to shoot those but he needed some. Just saying Curry is like nothing we have seen before. Ray was in the mold of Drexler and Jordan. Smartly he crafted his 3 point shooting to extend his career a great deal. To be honest in a game of horse with Curry right now and Ray in his shooting prime(Seattle?) Ray may beat him more than not. I read in NBA the art of the beautiful game that Rashard Lewis was lucky to win 2 games out of 100 in Horse with Ray. Anyway I was not hating on Ray, guy was sick. Just shocking to see the way Curry is playing now night in and out.

The shooting skill of these players is out of this world btw. On Vacation when I was young I saw Seattle play Phoenix at Phoenix. Seattle had the big 3, Chambers, Mcdaniel, and Dale Ellis. Phoenix who was nobody at the time had a young Jeff Hornacek and a rookie Kevin Johnson. Warming up I could not believe Dale Ellis. He set up at 3 and made like 10 in a row, then started bouncing the balls really high and shooting 3s of the catch and hitting every one. Anyway great game Phoenix pulled it out and a small guard named Kevin Johnson turned it on. Did not know who he was at the time but we all know what happened there. Sorry got a little sidetracked...

Saw this on facebook today, he looks pretty good at Horse too.

 

[alfonse]

Saw this on facebook today, he looks pretty good at Horse too.

well played