IGX

I like basketball, played in high school and played in one form or fashion for years and still do somewhat. But regardless of your affection for the game or lack thereof, there is really something magical going on right now in the NBA. This team and this young fellow are playing a game that you may not be able to see again in another lifetime. Curry's game in particular should be an inspiration to any player, whatever age. Truly beautiful. Last night's game against the San Antonio Spurs was one I sat down to watch in great anticipation...the league's most exciting, free-flowing team and current champion, the Golden State Warriors, against the league's best defensive team and arguable it's second best offensive team, owner of 11 victories of 25+ points or more, to the Warrior's 4 games of similar wins. It wasn't even close.

Curry is from another planet, basketball-wise!

January in the NBA doesn't matter. 1/2 the games are mail-in jobs.

The Warriors are a great team and fun to watch. I'll take the 1980's Lakers and Celtics.

I've only caught a few of the games this year, but I completely agree with this. I love watching Steph Curry play.

Shapecharge wrote:I like basketball, played in high school and played in one form or fashion for years and still do somewhat. But regardless of your affection for the game or lack thereof, there is really something magical going on right now in the NBA. This team and this young fellow are playing a game that you may not be able to see again in another lifetime. Curry's game in particular should be an inspiration to any player, whatever age. Truly beautiful. Last night's game against the San Antonio Spurs was one I sat down to watch in great anticipation...the league's most exciting, free-flowing team and current champion, the Golden State Warriors, against the league's best defensive team and arguable it's second best offensive team, owner of 11 victories of 25+ points or more, to the Warrior's 4 games of similar wins. It wasn't even close.

I am admittedly biased here because I've seen... a lot of live games at Oracle, going back to the days when the stands were often half full. And they were only that full because Vince Carter was in town (with Toronto), and we were hoping he'd dunk on one of our guys.

I've seen all the greats from the 90's- except Michael Jordan- through today play during the last 25 years. My family had season tickets for over a decade going into last season when my folks decided they didn't want to drive so far after they moved. Great timing, by the way.

That said, I've never seen a player do the things Steph has done on the offensive side. Nobody has combined the quick release, high percentage, passing ability, ball handling etc like he has. He is the single highest skilled player I have ever seen. He's not overly athletic by NBA standards. I'd probably put him in the middle of the pack regarding quickness, speed, strength etc, but his quickness with the ball in his hands, quick release, range of different shots, passing ability... nobody's combined all of it like he has.

And the team around him is about as perfect as it gets. They've got a few guys who are kind of mean (Green, Bogut, Ezeli), slashers, shooters, ball handlers, defensive specialists (mainly Iguodala)....

When I hear players from the 80s and 90s talking about how to stop Curry, it kind of cracks me up. These dudes who go to work in a suit now and hold a microphone all of a sudden know how to do something the rest of the league's players, coaching staffs, scouts and number crunching analytics nerds can't figure out.

As a side note I sat down one night with Dramond Green's dad and we talked about what a tall freshman with lots of baby fat could do to improve that. He found some good folks to work with shortly afterwards.

Baff, I'm totally with you brother. If I were coaching, I'd grab every youtube video I could of him to show young players how to dribble, pass off the dribble, shoot off the dribble, cross-over, jab-step, jump-stop, layups, floaters, use of the backboard, movement without the ball, how to shoot, how to shoot free throws...basically everything. Love his game and love the Warriors game. Sorry die hard 80's, 90's, 00's Lakers, Bulls, Celtics etc. fans...they would get murdered by these guys.

There's no doubt that LeBron is the best player in the league and arguably one of the most important/best players in league history but the Warriors "team" completely embarrassed LeBron and company the last game they played and the Warriors will most likely play again in the NBA finals. Unless somebody snipes Curry just give them the trophy now and give him his second MVP.

I'm not even sure Lebron is the best anymore. I mean, he may be, but the gulf between him and the rest has gotten a whole lot smaller.

The dopes who say that 80's, 90's or whatever team would smoke them, is an insult. They could hang with, and/or beat any of the great teams from yesteryear. That's not to say they're the best team ever- let's be real, it's 120+ regular season games and one pretty solid run through the playoffs- but they deserve to be in the discussion.

On another side note, I was talking to my dad before last night's game and we were talking about Green and Bogut's combined passing ability reminding me of the work Chris Webber and Vlade Divac put in with the Kings 15 or so years ago.

After trying to watch the finals last year, it was painful to watch, I'd almost swore off watching another game. Steph Curry has gotten me to watch again, but only just to see how good he really is. His shooting skill is phenomenal. The further away from the basket they force him, he just gets better. LeBron has gotten worse the further away he gets. I've watched a few post game interviews with Curry where the hottie sportcaster doing the interview is taller than he is. Find it hard to believe he's even 6-3.

Vlade was a great passing big man. Curry is unreal. You said it perfectly, Baff.

baffled wrote:The dopes who say that 80's, 90's or whatever team would smoke them, is an insult. They could hang with, and/or beat any of the great teams from yesteryear. That's not to say they're the best team ever- let's be real, it's 120+ regular season games and one pretty solid run through the playoffs- but they deserve to be in the discussion.

Different game IMHO. The game Bill Laimbeer and Kevin McHale played, and a hundred other guys like them did, wouldn't be tolerated today. I miss that game.

Turdacious wrote:

baffled wrote:The dopes who say that 80's, 90's or whatever team would smoke them, is an insult. They could hang with, and/or beat any of the great teams from yesteryear. That's not to say they're the best team ever- let's be real, it's 120+ regular season games and one pretty solid run through the playoffs- but they deserve to be in the discussion.

Different game IMHO. The game Bill Laimbeer and Kevin McHale played, and a hundred other guys like them did, wouldn't be tolerated today. I miss that game.

No shit.

It's a game that is played quite a bit differently today, but the old guys assume they would have wiped the floor with today's players, and just assume these guys couldn't have adapted to the physicality. It sounds like the jock who still wears his letterman jacket to his old high school football games and makes fun of the current QB, even though he graduated from high school 3 years ago and was a backup at the local junior college.

Damn, I love watching this dude play.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/basketball/ ... 5bc05d2fef

You guys are very wrong!!
Barack H. Obama is the greatest basketballer in the world now and always was. In fact the greatest athlete for all sports that ever lived.

[T]there is another tale to be told about the Warriors. It involves a group of executives with limited experience, led by a Silicon Valley financier, that bought a floundering franchise in 2010 and set out to fix it by raising a single question: What would happen if you built a basketball team by ignoring every orthodoxy of building a basketball team?

The process took many twists and turns, and there were times when it nearly failed. But the dominance the Warriors have displayed this season can be traced back to one of the most unusual ideas embraced by the data-loving executives: the notion that the NBA's 3-point line was a market inefficiency hiding in plain sight.

This season the Warriors have sunk 1,025 3-pointers, by far the most in NBA history. Not only has Mr. Curry taken more threes than any other player, he is making them at a rate of 45.6%, higher than the NBA average for all shots. He has shattered his own record for most 3-pointers in a season by 34%. Moreover, distance seems to have no significant effect on his accuracy. Mr. Curry is a better shooter from 30 to 40 feet than the average NBA player is from 3 to 4.

The result is a basketball style no one has yet figured out how to defeat.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-golden- ... GoogleNews
Great writeup, the whole thing's worth a read.

Crazy thing about Curry is he plays the 30th most minutes in the league. If he played as many minutes as say, James Harden, Curry would make 65+ more 3s per year! He made 402 this year.

Additional minutes puts him in reach of 500 when the "untouchable" record of 276 was done 10 years ago.

Amazeballs.

The VC article is pretty bullshitty. They're winning because they inherited a guy who's become a videogame character for the past two seasons - note that none of the other Silicon Valley money guys has made a dent and it leaves out the first Internet tech guy to buy a team, Mark Cuban. Who has put together a constant playoff presence/won one championship... because he inherited Dirk Nowitzki.

Yes I Have Balls wrote:Crazy thing about Curry is he plays the 30th most minutes in the league. If he played as many minutes as say, James Harden, Curry would make 65+ more 3s per year! He made 402 this year.

Additional minutes puts him in reach of 500 when the "untouchable" record of 276 was done 10 years ago.

Amazeballs.

I heard the stat this morning, that Magic Johnson didn't even attempt 400 three-pointers in his whole career.

DikTracy6000 wrote:

Yes I Have Balls wrote:Crazy thing about Curry is he plays the 30th most minutes in the league. If he played as many minutes as say, James Harden, Curry would make 65+ more 3s per year! He made 402 this year.

Additional minutes puts him in reach of 500 when the "untouchable" record of 276 was done 10 years ago.

Amazeballs.

I heard the stat this morning, that Magic Johnson didn't even attempt 400 three-pointers in his whole career.

Sure he did. He didn't make that many in his entire career.

Larry Bird made 649...in his career.

It's insane. It took 10 years for Ray Allen to better Dennis Scott's record by 2.

Another decade later it was still only 17 higher. Then, he turns around and beats it by...106? I don't know any season records that have ever been destroyed like that.

Protobuilder wrote:It's insane. It took 10 years for Ray Allen to better Dennis Scott's record by 2.

Another decade later it was still only 17 higher. Then, he turns around and beats it by...106? I don't know any season records that have ever been destroyed like that.

Single-season HRs. Ned Williamson held the record from 1884 to 1918 with 27. Ruth breaks it by 2 in 1919, then hits 54 the next year, outhomering all but two TEAMS in baseball.

here's a chart -- the guy is an alien

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... d=30103353

Credit to Kerr too. Not many coaches allow their floor general to run hog wild out there like that.

It's possible that guys like Pete Maravich, Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Steve Nash, et al, could have developed into similar styled gunslingers, but that was never considered pure basketball.

Not trying to take anything away from Curry. It's certainly possible nobody else would have had his shooting percentage, nor his blend of shooting, playmaking, leadership and defense. Just saying not every coach would have greenlighted him the way Kerr did.

Thud wrote:Credit to Kerr too. Not many coaches allow their floor general to run hog wild out there like that.

It's possible that guys like Pete Maravich, Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Steve Nash, et al, could have developed into similar styled gunslingers, but that was never considered pure basketball.

Not trying to take anything away from Curry. It's certainly possible nobody else would have had his shooting percentage, nor his blend of shooting, playmaking, leadership and defense. Just saying not every coach would have greenlighted him the way Kerr did.

you appear to be wrong, at least insofar as pistol pete is concerned:

in his first 6 full seasons, curry has taken 7906 shots.

maravich took 9147 during his first six season.

in his seventh season maravich 2047

the most curry has taken in any one season to date is 1598.

Maravich was perhaps the original gunslinger, without the 3pt line. Part of my point is that he might have matched or exceeded Curry's numbers were he raised in the 3pt era.

Fans have always loved a showboater: coaches not so much. Take a guy like Iverson. A fantastic individual player, but always questioned if you could win it all with him. Curry might have been viewed in a similar light had the coach not embraced his style and found a way to win with it.

http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/ ... _Pete.html

"Pete Maravich was Showtime before there was Showtime. The only problem with Pete Maravich was the four other guys; he just didn't relate to the rest of the team. A team was Pete Maravich and anybody who was inbounding to him,"

The scoring didn't endear him to all, however. Maravich never played on a championship team in college or the pros, a fact noted by critics. While Pat Riley marveled at the floor show, he called Maravich "the most overrated superstar."

"Raw-talentwise, he's the greatest who ever played," said Lou Hudson, a Hawks teammate. "But always, no matter what he does, he will be a loser. That's his legacy. It never looked easy being Pete Maravich."

Thud wrote:Maravich was perhaps the original gunslinger, without the 3pt line. Part of my point is that he might have matched or exceeded Curry's numbers were he raised in the 3pt era.

fair enough. i thought you were talking about volume of shot-taking, not scoring.

i don't watch basketball. i'll catch a highlight or two. some of the shots curry takes are ridiculous--then they go in, so i guess not so ridiculous after all.