Hoops Tonight - Is Steph Curry a top 5 player in NBA history?

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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. YEA, all right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had a great weekend. Part in the different setup. I'm doing some renovations to the studio right now, so for about the next week or so, this will be the setup just want to get some permanent stuff in there. Had

we threw the set together really fast. If you guys remember we started this show in February in the middle of the season, and so we didn't have a ton of time to get detailed with the setup. So we're doing some work in there right now. Um, that should be back to normal by next week. Season is right around the corner to we are, if I'm not mistaken. Four weeks from Thursday is the first preseason game this year. That's how close we are. And the next month we're

gonna be spending a lot of time looking forward. We're gonna do another series, a detailed series similar to what

we did with our top twenty five NBA players. We're gonna do the top fifteen power rankings going into the season, and each video is going to be a deep dive into everything about that particular team in the Power rankings, changes they've made to the roster over the offseason, what I expect them to look like on the offensive end of the floor and the defensive end of the floor, Predictions for the season, everything under the sun for each

of the top fifteen teams in the league. That's something I'm really looking forward to But before we look forward, there is one last thing that we have to do looking backwards, and it's something I feel like it's really important because one of the best basketball players of all time, a player that coming into last season had three championships, should have had a Finals MVP, had one back to back m vps at one point, and is the foundational

piece for one of the wildest franchise turnarounds in the history of the NBA and the most dominant franchise of this era. Mr Steph Curry. He just had not only another championship added to his resume, a Finals m v P what should have been a second added to his resume, but had one of the most dominant playoff runs of his career and an NBA history that changes a lot of things, that puts him into conversations with players that we never really thought that he'd be mentioned with when

he came into the league. And so before we look forward, before we start thinking about this next season, I wanted to take an opportunity to think a little bit harder about where Staph lands all time. After this crowning achievement of his career, this playoff run, winning a fourth title, with the Golden State Warriors. So we're gonna be diving into where he ranks in the list to a um, how I what rules I use with my particular list, and get into some of the other players on the

list as well. But it's gonna be a big focus on Steph. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volume's YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements.

And then, last but not least, if you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, don't forget that you can always go to our podcast feeds wherever you get your podcasts and find the audio version of these shows under Hoops Tonight. So again, we need to have this conversation because I do think these things matter. Um, the debates themselves can get frustrating to me for the same reasons why the

player rankings can get frustrating. Sometimes no one really wants to negotiate and good or talk or discuss and good faith. Everyone's kind of married to their opinions and it can get very like aggressive with people, and it doesn't end up being a basketball discussion often enough for my likeing. But I do think these things matter. The reality is is,

particularly with the NBA, we care about player rankings. We talk about the goat the greatest of all time in basketball a hell of a lot more than we do with Major League Baseball or with football, obviously because of positional differences. And I think that's interesting because there are

positional differences in basketball. I keep separate lists for bigs and perimeter players, which we'll talk about here in a minute, but lists, these all time rankings do matter a lot more within the historical context of the NBA than they

do with other sports. And Steph Curry just had an incredible career defining achievement and as a four time champion, two time m v P, he is on a very short list of players who have hit those specific markers in NBA history, and so he's starting to force his way into some really complicated conversations, and that's recognition that

he deserves. I've always been a big believer that you know that that that the trophy really means something, and when you have a season like this that ends in an achievement like Steph lighting up that Celtics defense and getting a trophy. I believe you deserve a hell of a lot of recognition because of just how hard that is to do. I do the same thing when Janice got the trophy last year, did the same thing when

Lebron got it in again. When these guys add that particular achievement to their to their resume and needs to be celebrated. So a couple of things. First of all, why do I keep biggs and perimeter players in separate lists. It's the same reason why I value perimeter players more than bigs in general. But it goes deeper than that. They because I don't have to get into the basketball reasons. The main thing to me is it's they're just different positions.

How can I possibly compare what Kareem abdul Jabbar did for the Lakers for all those years to what Steph Curry is doing for the Warriors. There's no basketball translatability. They didn't even do any of the same jobs on the floor, aside from the end result, which was putting the ball in the basket or stopping the other team from putting the ball in the basket. That's where the similarities end. So how can I say one player is better than the other when it's like comparing a left

tackle to a cornerback in the NFL? Like it just there's not enough parallels there for me to make those types of comparisons. So for me, I'm gonna put perimeter players in one list, and bigs at any kind of big and another list that involves big centers like Kareem abdul Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain and the best power forwards of all time, the Tim Duncans and the Dirk Namitzki's

of the world. I view that specific position, the low post anchor on both ends of the floor, as a completely different position, a completely different job, but basically a different sport than what the perimeter players are asked to do on any given possessions. So I'm going to keep them in different lists. That's just the way I do it. A lot of people are going to do it differently,

and that's fair, you know. Like some people say Kareem Abdulgibar is the greatest basketball player of all time, They're not wrong. I just have a hard time saying Kareem is better than Lebron and MJ considering they do absolutely nothing similar on a basketball court. And then lastly, I don't factor in any basketball before the nineteen eighties. The reason there is very simple. I have watched a lot of film from everything that's happened, from all of the

greatest games in NBA history many times over. There's plenty of footage and a lot to dive in there to learn beyond it gets really cloudy for me, and I personally just don't feel comfortable having strong opinions about basketball players that played that long ago. The game looks very different. It's a lot harder to find footage. In general. It's just an era that I do not know enough about beyond what I've read in books and a little bit of footage that I've seen. So for me personally, I

don't feel comfortable comfortable for that. There are a lot of guys out there that are older, that have been around the game a lot longer, that are more willing to dive into those types of comparisons. That's not me. So this particular list for me is perimeter players. After those are my rules. That's just the way that I do it. That's the way this list is gonna go.

So what I want to do is I want to first list off what my top nine is without Steph and then what I what we'll do is we'll go over steps resume and where he fits into this list. So I have Michael Jordan at number one. What he did in terms of dominance, not just as an individual but with his team is unmatched in NBA history, and I think that that has to way more than everything

else that we talked about on this list. When you win six championships in eight tries as a team, when it's considered blasphemous to even mention another player in the same breath as you, that is a type of dominance that nobody in this era has accomplished. There was maybe you two or three year stretch in the early two thousand tens, like from two thousand twelve to two thousand thirteen, in those two seasons where it was blasphemous to mention

a name with Lebron James. But that was two years, and what mj did during that entire decade of the nineties mimics what Lebron did during that two year span. There's no comparison. And then in terms of team success. We've had players have three peats. We've had players win a lot of championships over a long period of time, too. To three peats executed within an eight year window is a level of dominance that no player in modern NBA

history has been able to touch. I think we have to apply the appropriate amount of credit and attention in that direction, and that to me is gonna put MJ at number one on my list. Number two, I have Lebron. He's the unprecedented combination of longevity and greatness. There are players like uh like Karl Malone and and Kareem abdul Jabar that were around forever and we're very good the

whole time. But for both of those guys, once they got over that age at thirty five, they were great players, but they were never considered potentially among the best players in the league. And that's the wild thing about the Lebron James experience. Like I, most Lebron fans disagree with me, and I have him at number four going into this age thirty eight season, this twentieth season of his career. It's a type of dominance at that age that we've

never seen before. The other big thing with Lebron that I think often gets glossed over is there is no player in NBA history that has the variety of success

that Lebron James has. From taking Eric Snow and Danielle Marshall and Drew Good into the NBA Finals in two thousand seven to winning sixty games twice and making it to the Conference finals with Moe Williams as his best teammate in that team with Delonte West and Shaquille O'Neil on it, but when he was way past his prime, to what he did with the Miami Heat, to the end of the Miami Heat era when Bosch was at the five and Dwyane Wade had declined quite a bit,

to the Kyrie Irving Kevin Love Calves, to just the Kevin Love Calves going all the way to the NBA Finals, to having a winning record with Brandon Ingram and Crew when he was playing in two thousand nineteen, to what he did with Anthony Davis, like there's just regardless of circumstance, there is no player that has been as successful as he's been and as many different types of situations to solidify his basketball impact. With so many other players in

NBA history. You can quickly point to like, oh, like he won this way, but who knows if he could have won if something else was different, you know what I mean? And even with MJ, it's like he always won because he had Scottie Pippen. And you know whether it was Horace Grant the first time around or is Dennis Rodman the second time around. He had a great front court that helped him do with do the dirty work. You never saw him win in like different styles, not

undercutting what he did. That's just MJ. Or that's just Lebron's case, Lebron's pace. If you're attempting to say or convince people that he was better than m J, you're centering it around longevity and variety. He won over a longer period of time, and he won a bunch of different ways, and that is what kind of that kind of removes question marks and remove subjectivity from his basketball impact.

At number three, I have Kobe Bryant, and I know that's gonna seem high for a lot of you guys, but I value what he did on the court a great deal. Also, I think the analytics movement did a lot to damage Kobe's legacy in a way that I don't think it's fair. You know, Kobe was inefficient as a score compared to a lot of his peers, but that had a lot more to do with the way the game was played in that era, slow pace, very little space to operate, still had bruising power forwards on

the floor, two big lineups almost exclusively. I mean, he was playing with bidenm and Gasol. You know, that's just parameters shifting from era to era. It's not fair to compare James har it In and the types of shots that he's taking in this era with the type of spacing that he has to what Kobe was dealing with. And yet the analytics movement has driven that argument to the point where a lot of people have Kobe down at like thirteen all time in their rankings, which I

just think is absurd and disrespectful. And I don't think there's a single thing that James Harden can do with the basketball as well as Kobe can do it, and he shot higher percentages. So what do you guys think that is? Do you think James Harden actually was better than Kobe at those things or do you think the parameters have shifted? I think the parameters have shifted, so I think it's Kobe has been unfairly maligned on that front. He's got a lesser version of MJ's career. He's the

second best score of all time. He won five championships. His last two championships with the Lakers have become underrated as well. I mean, it really was just a bunch of role players in pau Gasol. Very good teams, but not the super talent related teams that we've seen when throughout NBA history. So I've Kobe at number three. Number four, I have Magic Johnson. I think he's the ultimate franchise

foundational piece. We talked about this a lot with Tim Duncan and Steph Curry, this idea of the player that never really was like consistently the best player in the league, but that was always in that conversation, and their career spans multiple iterations of that team. The team is always winning and they win a lot of championships. That's magic, Tim Duncan and Steph Curry. I think Magic has the best version of that career. So I have him up

at number four. The big thing with him his versatility as a big forward with as as much skill as he had allowed him to evolve his role as the team needed it to change. No different than him starting at center in an NBA Finals game in his rookie year. UM Number five, I've Larry Bird, three time champ, three time m v P. Team success is what keeps him

behind Magic at this point. Those four so Lebron, Magic, Bird, and MJ All those, all of the five, not counting Kobe, those are the only four per emitter players to have three m vps and three titles. That's how rare that is. There were two bigs who did a Kareem and Russell that only six players in NBA history have three titles and three m vps. Not a coincidence that I have them as four of my top five going into this

particular conversation. Number six, I have Kevin Durant, two times champion, one time m v P. I also have him as the third best score of all time. Number seven. Remember these are all players in their accomplishments. Post number seven, I have Dwyane Wade, a three time chap, one time Finals MVP. He had one of the most dominant playoff runs of all time in two thousand and six. He average twenty eight, six and six on fifty nine percent true shooting. In the finals, he averaged thirty five, eight

and four on fifty seven percent true shooting. Uh Like. At his peak, he was arguably the most unguardable player in the NBA, with how difficult it was to keep him out of the lane. Number eight, which is wild. I already have Johannas antennakompa two time m VP in one time champ, already incredibly dominant playoff run in two thousand twenty one, probably should have won last year's MVP two. He's gonna be rocketing up this list at a high

rate of speed. And then number nine, the final player in the top ten, not counting step I have Julius Irving. He won a title and an m v P in the early eighties. The interesting part about it is he did it during Magic and Birds Watch. UM I had him just barely over Isaiah Thomas here. Isaiah Thomas's team was more successful, but I did think Julius was a slightly better player. UM So, where does Steph fit in this list? That's the question. Let's take a quick look

at his resume. So step is a four time champion now one time finals MVP should be too. A two time m v P, an eight time All Star, four time first Team All m b A, eight time All m B A overall in a two time scoring champ. Just that resume before we get any deeper into the woods, before we even consider all of the details. In the context that automatic puts in ahead of dr j had A Janice had A Dwayne Wade and headed Kevin Durant,

and there's a healthy gap there. So he can be no lower than the sixth the best perimeter player since night. So I don't think that Steph has a case over Magic, and I don't think that Steph fans would disagree with me. I mean, Magic's a three time m v P, five time champion during an era when the league was stacked with talent. This was before talent delustion, this was before they expanded the number of teams, a similar type of role to Steph two in that franchise cornerstone type of

type of roles. So I don't I think he's got some ground to cover to get into that Magic Johnson conversation, which means that the debate here is is who's at number five? Are we putting Larry Bird at number five? Are we putting Steph Curry at number five? Al Right, guys, it's time to kick off Week one with Fan Duel, America's number one sports book joint today. To get started with one hundred and fifty dollars in free bets guaranteed

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So Larry Bird's peak was higher in my opinion. From nine eighty six he won three consecutive m v P s and two championships and one finals MVP in both championships N six During the regular season during that three year span, he average twenty six ten and seven on fifty from the field from three and eight percent from

the line, so he's basically the original guy. In the playoffs, the scoring went up a little bit twenty seven ten and seven from the field thirty eight percent from three percent from the line, so he was the original hyper efficient score. So his peak, if you're just looking at just that three year window, three m vps, two finals, MVPs, dominant efficient scoring, well rounded game, rebounding the basketball, passing

the basketball. I don't think Steph can match that peak, but in terms of the totality of their career right now, I do give Steph a slight edge. Not only does he have one more title, but I think he has the most impressive title out of any of the titles that Larry and step one combined Playoff Run and we talked about this a lot on the show. There are so many elements that we've even forgotten about, as as

if time has gone by. For instance, Lebron, James, Kevin Duranton Janice are all still at the peak of their powers. I have those guys as the other three and the top four players in the league right now. He was coming off of a foot injury. He sat out. I can't remember how many it was, something like a dozen games. His first bit of action was coming off the bench

in the first round of the playoffs. This Golden State roster was very good, but it's flawed, Like it kind of reminds me of the Kobe rosters in two thousand, nine, thousand ten, Like there's arguably not a top fifteen player on the roster outside of Steff. I didn't even have a top twenty player on the roster outside of Steph. Like each players deeply impactful and valuable, right Like what Draymond does for the Warriors is immensely valuable. What Andrew

Wiggins did for the Warriors was immensely valuable. But there's no star next to Steph Curry there, so that that's kind of uh an interesting piece of context. He goes through. He rips through Nikola Yokitch in the first round, John morand uh rapidly ascending John Morant in the second round, Luca don Chech in the third round, and Jayson Tatum in the fourth round. Literally with Luca and Tatum in particular, he emotionally crushes them. Both Luca and Jayson Tatum played

well below their play just previously. In this playoff run. Luca looked like a world beater against the Phoenix Suns and looked like a shell of himself against the Golden State Warriors. Jayson Tatum was you know, Kauai esque through three rounds and then fell apart in the finals. That's

two Steph's credit. Obviously, Andrew Wiggins was doing the defensive job, but the emotional stress, the fear of looking eye to eye with Steph Curry coming at you on the other end of the court, that had a psychological impact act on those guys. I truly believe it did, and it's an underrated part of this playoff run. In the Boston series, he averages thirty one, six and five on percent from the field, from three from the line, and only two

and a half turnovers per game. This was against the Boston Celtics defense that I thought had the best half court defense of this era, the same Boston Celtics defense that caused massive problems for every other star they came up against. Jimmy Butler had some nightmare games in the conference finals, Janice's shooting percentages didn't even resemble the way he normally plays basketball, and Kevin Durant had the worst playoff series he's had in six years. That's what the

Boston Celtics team did to those guys. And Steph Curry had one of the best playoff series of his career against that Boston defense. And then even as we zoom out to the totality of their legacy, you know, Larry Bird continued and grew the legacy of the Boston Celtics, So I don't want to undercut that. He also him and Magic Johnson are directly responsible for infusing life into an MBA that was losing Steam in terms of its

national popularity. But what Steph Curry did with the Warriors is somehow even more impressive than that, because he came to them when they were a perennial loser and he turned that perennial loser into the most successful NBA franchise of this era. Now there's competency in the the organization

from top to bottom. They have an owner that's willing to spend, a general manager who understands what works in the modern NBA, an excellent head coach, and the you know, most Warriors fans will tell you this was the year where Steve Kerr kind of showed some malleability and willingness to change his approach to cater to this specific roster. So don't get me wrong, the Golden State machine has lots of of really competent people in their positions that's

leading to the success. But the guy who started that all as Steph Curry. And none of that happened without Steph Curry. And so what he did turning a perennial loser into an NBA powerhouse that will continue to be an NBA powerhouse to some extent even after he's gone. I put an even I put an even a greater deal of of weight in that accomplishment than what Larry

Bird did with the Boston Celtics. So, even though Larry Bird had a higher peak from nineteen eighty six, I think Curry is the fifth best perimeter player in NBA history since nineteen eighty So the question here, the final question I wanted to touch as you know what, most Steph Curry fans will wonder, what would it take for Steph Curry to be considered in the goat conversation? And first of all, it's a conversation. You're never ever going to get unanimous approval from any one name from the

basketball community. I mean, my father in law is a big basketball fan. He thinks Will Chamberlain is the best player of all time. You think I'm gonna convince him any thing like Like, I'm not. Like, That's just the way he sees it, right. There are people out there who think Kareem was the best player of all time. Most people think m J. Lebron fans swear it's Lebron. It's a conversation. The thing that interested interests me more

is what's the case. Right. MJ's case is dominance from no one could mess with me and no one could mess with my team. Therefore I am the greatest ever. That's MJ's case, right, Lebron's cases like, regardless of circumstance, regardless of scenario, regardless of team, for twenty years, I could make your team a contender. That's that's Lebron's case, and it's a damn good one. So what is Steph's case?

Right to me, Steph's case is that ultimate foundational piece and the three names we threw out there, like Tim Duncan, Steph and Magic Johnson because they don't have the dominance, They don't have that eye to eye with the best players in the league and consistently beating them and out playing them type of thing that Lebron and m J had.

But there's this team's success. There's this like aura of success that seems to like players who come into contact with them play better, the organization as a whole seems to be improving as they are involved. That ultimate franchise foundational piece becomes Steph's case. It's great leadership, it's great consistency, it's making different players play well around him, it's winning over a larger span of time. Getting a title in two when he got a title in two thousand fifteen

is incredibly impressive in that regard. But he needs to have a better version of Magic Johnson's case because right now that foundational piece thing is going to go to Magic, right and his case isn't good enough to enter into that conversation. So what what what step would need to do is to win two additional titles, which is absolutely in play, especially with some of the young talent that's

on that roster. If step manages to win two more titles, he becomes a six time champion that has the type of unassailable leadership and competency organizational uh that that impact on the organization that left behind a dynasty that will linger even after he's gone, the same way that Magic

did with the Lakers. If Steph can have a better version of that case, that becomes his case when we have those conversations, and you can imagine a scenario in the future where you're sitting at a sports bar and STEP's a six time champion and you got three guys sitting at the bar, and the MG guy goes man dominance. No one could mess with him. Six titles no one was even at his level. And then the Lebron guy buttsan and he goes, yeah, but you know, he played

for twenty years. He wanted all these different ways. He wanted with a d as his teammate, he won with KYRIEA as his teammate, He wan with Dwayne Waite is his teammate. You can see that being the case. And then with Steph, it's I took a perennial loser and turned them into the most competent and successful franchise of this era. We won six championships. I you know, so that puts me over Magic Johnson. That puts me over Tim Duncan. I am the ultimate franchise builder in NBA history.

That would be Steph's case. He just needs to get two additional titles to enter into that conversation. And it's wild to even think that it's possible at this point, but it absolutely is. So again, my list funky parameters right perimeter players only only after. But when I'm ranking my top ten, I'm going m J. Lebron, I'm going Kobe Magic, Steph at number five, Larry Bird at number six, and I'm going to Kevin Durant Dwyane Wade, Johannesson, Henny Coombo at number nine, and Dr J at number ten,

and with that we can finally stop looking backwards. I feel like we've taken plenty of time this summer to give step the victory lap, a two month long victory lap that he deserves. He's already a top five perimeter player in modern NBA history with a lot of basketball left to play. I'm excited to watch it. And like I said, over the course of the next month, we're gonna be doing deep dives into each of the top fifteen teams going into the season in the Power Rankings format,

so be on the lookout for that. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys support, and I'll see you in a couple of days. The volume