Hoops Tonight - Ranking the Top 5 Players in NBA: #2 Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors

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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week. So far. We are down to the final two players in our top twenty five list that we've been working on here for the last couple of weeks. We'll be doing number two today. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our content.

Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt S. You guys don't miss any show announcements or any other video content that I produce on Twitter. And then, last but not least, if you guys missed one of these videos and you can't get back to YouTube to finish them, we do release them in audio form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. All right, number two another one of my favorite players in the league, Mr Steph Curry.

This is gonna be a fun one. I've been looking forward to this a lot over the course of the summer. This guy just deserves to have a ton of praise heaped on him this summer for what he accomplished in

this past year. An unassailable playoff run to wipe clean a rough couple of years, rough couple of years that weren't his fault in my opinion, A rough couple of years that all of his detractors used as an opportunity to pile dirt and prematurely berry Steph Curry when he very much had a lot left to say in his basketball career. As you know, the year after the two thousand nineteen finals, Kevin Durant leaves, Clay Thompson has a torn a c L, Steph Curry ends up breaking his hand,

ends up missing the vast majority of that season. They missed the playoffs. Then the following year, it's kind of a weird, kind of like Bridge season, Clay still out, but Steph Andre are there and actually healthy. But there is also like this weird priority to play the younger players.

Some of the role players that they picked, namely Camp Baysmore and Kelly Ubre ended up being bad fit spread Wanamaker two where they just struggled in the Golden State system, which is designed to generate four on three opportunities and you need smart players that are good at attacking closeouts and making reads to their teammates. Just a funky season where things didn't really come together and they missed the

playoffs again, in my opinion, not because of Steph. I thought that was Steph's best regular season of his career when you factor in the way he was defended and the actual result of what he was doing on the offensive end. Of the floor. But even though Steph was the best I had ever seen him offensively, it wasn't enough. Why because basketball is a team sports, something that we talked about a ton over the course of the last week.

So coming into this season, they finally signed some smarter role players, players that are a little bit more cerebral with the way that they play, especially when they're in space. Off of the attention that Steph Curry got, earners bringing back on Darragudala getting out of Porter Jr. Gary Payton second, who, as many of you guys may not know, when he was in junior college one a Player of the Year award,

primarily for what he was doing as a playmaker. This is a guy that is gifted at putting the ball on the floor and making plays. First teammates, one of the unsung heroes of last year's playoff run. Just a smarter group of players, no longer prioritizing the young players unless Steve Kerr saw opportunities for them to fit in the rotation and small bursts, and the result was much better.

They dominated from the start of the season, and then we got into a playoff run where a couple of things didn't go their way, Draymond Green recovering from a back injury, Clay Thompson not being what he was defensively before his injury, and then Steph Curry sprains his foot and misses a chunk of games right before the playoffs.

Game one of the playoff series he gets Denver, ends up being his first game that he plays live in a very long time, comes off the inch and kicks off arguably the most dominant playoff front of his career when you factor in quality of competition as well as the supporting cast he had at his disposal. Andrew Wiggins, I thought was the best player on that roster not

named Steph Curry. That's an unassailable championship run. Wipes clean so many of the stupid narratives that have followed step throughout his career, and I'm really happy for him that he had that moment. I'm I wanted to take a second here. I'm sure some of you Warriors fans have thought about this, specifically, Jason, Why aren't any other Warriors in the top twenty five. It's really not all that

complicated to me. The talent at the top of the league is insanely deep and I would argue, right beneath where I started this list, which I think was the top twenty nine players in the list, You're gonna hit Draymond Green, You're gonna hit Jordan Pool, You're gonna hit Clay Thompson in pretty quick order there. This is an extremely smart team with a roster that's extremely well put together. They don't have top end talent outside of Steph, but

extremely competent down the roster. They had a lot of wings that didn't even get into their rotation because how deep they were, Guys like Damian Lee, Guys like Andrea Gudala. For the most part during this playoff run, this was an extremely well put together roster. They just didn't have top end talent outside of step That's why I didn't have other guys that made it on this list. But Andrew Wiggins turned into a monstrous three and D player

in that playoff run. Clay Thompson timely scoring Draymond Green every bit as Draymond greeny as he's ever been. But I just don't think those guys are at the same level of your Chris Paul's and Bradley Beals and guys that didn't quite make the cut for the top twenty five. So that's all that means. It's not disrespect to those guys. I still think this team is extremely well put together

and has a ton of talent. But Steph is the only top twenty five type of guy that was on that roster, and hey, that's what makes it an unassailable playoff run. That's why when we do all time rankings, he's gonna be pretty damn high on my list. I what he did with last year's roster was a sailable and it deserves to be celebrated. All right, let's get into some numbers. You guys know the drill here. I'm gonna go through some numbers. I want to do a little bit more of a deep dive into steps slump

this year because now in retrospect, it's super interesting. We're gonna be doing strengths, weaknesses, biggest hope's, biggest fears, and biggest what if at the end. All right, So this season, Steph average twenty six, five and six on six shooting hilarious because sixty percent true shooting is better than the vast majority of the guys on this list. But it's considered a down shooting year. For staff. But hey, that's

the being graded on a curve. There are a couple of guys in the league that're great on a curve, Lebron Steph janice Kd. These guys you just get so statistically, are numb to what they do statistically that you see some anomally that just looks normal and it's considered a down season, right, So that sixty percent true shooting was down six percent from last season, just for a little perspective,

and down seven percent from his unanimous MVP season. In the postseason that went up to twenty seven points per game, five rebounds, six assists on sixty one percent true shooting, and then in the finals in particular, thirty one points per game, six rebounds, five assists on sixty three percent true shooting. On the scoreboard, step was monumentally valuable in two In two hundred and twenty five minutes versus Boston, the Warriors were plus thirty five. In sixty three minutes

without Steph, they were minus eleven. It was the defining run of Steph's career. We are going to spend a lot of time talking about that, especially when we get into the XS and O stuff from the NBA Finals because I thought it was a super interesting gamble from Boston, and Steph Curry made them pay in a big way. All right, let's get into strengths. So I think Steph Curry is the best offensive engine in basketball right now. I think Lebron's the best offensive engine of this era

with a slight edge over Steph. But I think Steph is the best offensive engine right now with a slight edge over Lebron, and then shortly behind them, i'd have Luca and Yokich. Offensive engine is very different than what we get from a Kevin Durant or a Kawhi Leonard or Jason Tatum or guys along those lines. To me, an offensive engine is a player that you can count on to Let's just say, in a regular game, you're getting a hundred possessions just for the sake of making

the math easy. You know, these tip of the spear type guys, you're Anthony davis Is, You're Kevin Durants, your Kawhi Leonards. They're not going to control the vast majority of those possessions, but for maybe thirty forty possessions, they're going to be really heavily involved. Your offensive engine types.

They're almost responsible for every fieldical attempt that gets generated in one way or another, either directly through them scoring, directly through them creating a shot for their teammate off the dribble or as a decoy, just with the way that the defense is set up to handle what they do on a possession by possession basis. That's kind of

what I define as an offensive engine. Obviously, every player is an offensive engine to some extent, but I do think there's a barrier between the steph Lebron, Luca Yogis pipes and the guys that are behind them, just in terms of how valuable they are to an offense generating quality looks. He's obviously the best shooter in basketball, best shooter of all time, and he's the best pull up three point shooter in basketball, best pull up three point

shooter of all time. The best mid rain shooter in the league is Kevin Durant in my opinion, but the best pull up shooter by overall shot value when you weigh things like the three point shot that goes to steph Um Again, he had a down shooting year this year, and I want to get into that a little bit because I think It's interesting a lot of that had to do with integrating Jordan Pool into the system, a different type of player than he's used to playing with

Clay Thompson being out of the lineup for a while, then coming back into the lineup and trying to get him reintegrated. Draymond Green missing a significant chunk of time, and as we know, Draymond Green is important, especially to a lot of the stuff that Steph Curry likes to

do without the basketball. So in this season, he averaged two restricted area makes at that's okay for reguard one paint, non restricted area make at one, a range make on fifty four percent, and four point five threes made per game at thirty eight percent, Again down across the board from what you typically expect from Steph. Three point five made pull up jumpers per game at thirty nine percent.

So what I wanted to do here was rip off his one numbers just to give you guys some perspective on how much better he had a shooting season last season or two seasons ago, I should say, just to give you some perspective on how strange this season was. So in he had two point seven restricted area makes on sixty five percent, considerably better in volume and performance.

One point three paint non restricted area makes. That's one midrange make on forty eight percent up from this year, and then five point three three's made per game at forty two. Biggest differences in pull up shooting four point one pull up makes per game at forty two UM. So to give you an idea in terms of the shot value on his pull up shooting. So if you guys remember yesterday I did with k D his pull up shooting for the season, he was right around forty percent.

I think his effective field goal percentage when you waited those for threes was about fifty two percent. In one season, steps effective field goal percentage on pull up jump shooting was fifty seven point three percent. That gives you an idea of just how much more valuable steps pull up pull up shooting is. In that season, he was three percent better than any pull up shooter that attempted at least five threes per game. Little trivia for you guys,

who do you think was number two? It was Zach Levine. So in his down year this year, he still had an effective field goal percentage of fifty two point five percent. So that's his down year. That was only a half of a present behind Trey Young for first place in the league sixteen players attempted at least eight threes per game.

He still finished fourth in percentage this year. So down shooting year for step still was a fifty two percent effect Phogo percentage and was fourth out of the sixteen players who attempted at least eight three eight threes per game. That's just a ridiculous shooting slump. It's a lot different than my shooting slump when when I was in college

back in the day. Um okay, So I wanted so that the actual shooting slump itself stretched from January three to March first, Okay, so about two months, a little over thirty games or something along those lines. Um. He It was crazy how poorly he performed, even on good shot quality. He shot thirty four percent on wide open threes during that stretch. Again, wide open threes defenders at

least six ft away. Like, if Steph Curry is shooting thirty four percent on wide open threes, that's pretty damn flukey from the corner, which is where he's usually incredibly deadly, especially when he's moving without the basketball on pull up threes. So it's just a random stretch where nothing was going in, but it was extended. It was two months long. That's why I kept asking, like, man, what's going on with Steph?

Like this is so usual compared to anything else that he did in the years before that, it was worth at least talking about, is worth thinking about, And like I said before that playoff run, we're going to find out. We're gonna find out if that was a slump or

if it's a decline. And he proved resoundingly that it was just a slump, because not only was he from three before that stretch, and after that stretch, this was what he did in the NBA Finals seventy one percent in the restricted area, fifty nine percent in the mid range, and on twelve three point attempts per game. So he took any notion that there might be a slump there

and just completely knocked it out of the park. It's just completely We can now simply look back at that as hey do remember that time in two for two months that Steff just couldn't make a shot and no one knew what happened, And then he was fine and one of finals, MVP that's the way we get to tell that story now, because Steph proved that that's all

that that was. The finals were super interesting because, as you guys remember in the preview before that series, I was watching film from the regular season, and the Celtics utilize the drop coverage against the Warriors. Um not just on ball screens, but kind of a modified drop concept

on off ball actions. So like if Steph was in the corner and someone said a pinned down for him, rather than having that screen be switched so that he doesn't have an opening, they would force the defender to chase him over the top of the screen and the big man like Robert Williams and or Al Horford would

be back kind of by where the screener was. And in the regular season matchups, I'm watching Steph come flying off of these pin downs and he's getting wide open threes and coming off these ball screens, and he's getting pretty damn good looks at the three. And if you guys remember, in the season preview or a series preview, I'm like, well, that's a suicide mission. I sure hope they don't do that. And then they came out and

they did that anyway, in the finals. Now, if you guys, remember with the hellio centric guys, when I was talking about like Luca or On or Yokich or things along those lines, I was talking about the conundrum that defenses face in terms of game planning, and you pretty much

have two options. You can send the kitchen sink at the star to get the ball out of their hands and force teammates to make shots right, or you can stay home and try to bait them into playing isolation basketball even though they don't want to because they're primarily playmakers, and see if you can test their conditioning because obviously Luca Lebron, these kind of guys, they're gonna kill you in isolation, but maybe they won't be able to kill

you for seven games doing it. That's the debate, right, and those teams will try to figure out which strategy works best for them based on their personnel. There's a similar kind of discussion when you're getting ready to face

a Steph Curry lead team. The decision there is do we let Steff operate out of normal coverages and see if he can beat us shooting the basketball, or do we trap the hell out of him every time we get a chance and let the Warriors play four on three all series and see if they can beat us playing four on three. Now, I tend to go with the third option there. I tend to go with just switch everything and make Steph beat you in isolation um.

But the Celtics ended up in the main reason there is it's just harder for Steff to score in isolation scenarios than it is coming off of screens when he's getting airspace. The airspace that he's getting off of that is higher quality airspace, more space, higher quality shots than it is for him when he has to hit a dribble combination to get separation before he can make the shot.

But the Celtics opted for a drop coverage, and so what that meant was the defender was trying to chase step over the top of the screen and Robert Williams ral Horford would be a couple steps behind the three point line and they'd offer a late contest as Steff would come over the off of those threes. So they're contested. Don't get me wrong, they're difficult shots. But this is the best shooter of all time we're talking about here. This is the best pull up three point shooter of

all time. We're talking about here. This is a guy who has an incredibly quick release and is accustomed to shooting, particularly when he gets tiny little windows to shoot through. So Steph typically averages about nine pull up jump shot attempts per game typically in his career. In recent history, that went up to a thirteen per game against Boston. That's the way that that coverage dictated his shot profile.

And he made forty eight percent of them. And when you wait for threes, it was a sixty three point effect effective fiegal percentage. That's that. That's how ridiculous that strategy was. The Celtics were daring the best shooter of all time and the best pull up three point shooter of all time to take pull up three point shots, and he did, and he made them, and the rest is history. You know, this is where steps releases super unique. You know, I talked to I talked about this a

while back. I can't remember which player was specifically, but it was in this in this list that we were doing, and I talked about how there's like three different kinds of shot releases. There's like a standard catch and shoot release that most spot up shooters used where they shoot shortly before the apex of their shot. Then there's like your big scoring wings that typically shoot at the apex of the shot because they're trying to elevate over the

top of people. That's typically a more athletic type of wing that does that kind of thing. And then there's like the Trey Young, Steph Curry, Dame Lillard thing where they're actually shooting close to the beginning of their jump and the idea is to get it off as quickly as possible rather than trying to elevate or hang in the air long enough for the defender to come down. Step in this particular case is this is where him uh pulling up coming off of ball screens that this

is where his uh quick release becomes so valuable. So let's say Derek White's chasing stuff over the top of the screen and Robert Williams is going to be the one that's coming up and drop. He's in a drop, but he's gonna offer a late contest. Steph knows he can get a shot off there. It just has to be quick. He's gonna have a small window and he's gonna have to fire in that window. If he goes too soon, Derek White, maybe he isn't caught on the screen yet. If he goes to late, then maybe Robert

Williams can bother the shot with his late contest. But Steph found that sweet spot in that pick and roll and then it just became practice shots for him, and that's why he made them attent clip. I thought it was a strategic mistake from Boston, and hey, they dared an all time grade NBA player to do something that he's all time great at and he made them pay. Um. The one last thing I wanted to hit on here with Steph's um scoring ability is his handle and his fluidity.

This is something we talked about a lot, but like in order to translate good shooting ability to good pull up shooting ability, you also have to have a great handle and there has to be connectivity between the two.

So obviously handling the basketball is important to get two spots off of dribble combinations, right, But if you're too rigid with your shot form and you get to your shot pocket every single time, then you're gonna struggle transitioning from your handle to your jump shot because there's gonna effectively be a hitch there. As you have to set

yourself up into your jump shot. The fluidity is the transition between the two, and Steff is one of the best players in the league at this Specifically, he can flow out of a dribble combination into a shot so easily because there's a release actually starts out of the shooting pocket. So if he's in the shooting pocket, that's great, but he can also take it from out here. He could take it from out here, he could take it out of any dribble combination, he could take it off

of any catch. That is what allows Steph to be such a dominant pull up jump shooter. There is fluidity between his handle and his jump shot. The two are always connected in a way that he can transition between the two at any time. UM. Steph averaged one point two points per possession and isolation, but he only attempted one point eight isolations per game. That's super low volume for some perspective. O. G N and Noby for the Toronto Raptors this year attempted more isolations per game. UM.

This is just because Steph is really picky. Like, Steph knows that isolating is not his best ability because he's not the best type of athlete in the world, so he's very picky to wait for the right kind of matchup, typically against bigs. He did a lot of this in the finals when he would get Al Horford and Robert Williams on switches. When Steph gets a mismatch, particularly against a slow footed big, he's going to barbecue them, typically to the tune of one point two points per possession,

which is insane. A lot of people would consider this a weakness, like, hey, steps not a great isolation player against other big you know, or other great perimeter defensive players. To me, I view it as a strength. Why would you play to your weakness. Why would you try to isolate wings and guards that are great defensively for no reason when you're an excellent off ball player and excellent pick and role player and excellent at isolating bigs. That's

just good shot selection, is all that is. I do not view that as a weakness for step So, as promised from yesterday's show with Kevin durant Uh, we're gonna talk about moving without the basketball, which is one of the most important skills for staff. If you guys remember when we talked about Dame Lillard. This is the biggest

thing that separates the two of them. Dame Lillard is just about as effective with the basketball in his hands as Step, but there's a giant chasm between the two of them as players, and that's entirely made up by what Step does without the basketball moving and what he does defensively. The reason why moving without the basketball is

so important is it's easier than dribbling. Do you guys remember what happened in the finals when the Celtics were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, dribbling the basketball into traffic and turning the basketball over when it's physical, when the refs are swallowing the whistle, it's tough to dribble through traffic. So one of the things that stuff is figured out is when he before, before

he gets into trouble. If he gets rid of the basketball, he can run where he needs to go, and then it doesn't matter if if someone's reaching like crazy to try to knock the ball away, he doesn't actually have the basketball. And most importantly, moving without the basketball takes advantage of a very basic human instinct on basketball Defensively, what do you guys typically do when you're playing basketball?

At at the rec center, up at the l A fitness or up at the twenty four hour fitness wherever it is that you play, you're guarding your man because he has the basketball. Let's say he drives to the left and you cut him off and he picks up his dribble and he passes it back out. What's the

first thing you typically do? You relax because moving your feet when there's a ball handler attacking you, his hard and it's fatiguing, and you relax because that's your opportunity to gain energy for you to handle again, handle defensively again. Guess what step does. Steph knows that that's the perfect time to continue to move. His best given go player in the league. He's taking advantage of defenders instinctually relaxing

when they think the job is done. The best example you, guys, that I could give to you guys of this is the classics Steph corner three play where he kind of drives into the paint, the defense kind of collapses around him, and there will be a release valve somewhere in the short corner, typically Draymond or Kivan Looney, someone like that.

He will pass it to that short corner and not even consider stopping, can continue to sprint out following his pass to the corner, and then Draymond or Cavaloni will pass it between their legs back to step in the corner and he gets wide open looks out of that all the time. Why because when he drives into the paint and he gives up the basketball, it's human instinct for players to give up or to rely acts and

to get out of their defensive stance. And if you do that for a split second, if you come up out of your stance, you lose your mobility. That's why I tell young players all the time, like when you pump fake, don't ever come out of your athletic stance and a pump fake, because even if you get the defender to jump, you're out of your stance and now you've got to get back down into your stance so

you can explode. The same thing goes defensively. The second you stand up out of your defensive stance, you lose a second of mobility. And that's when Steph strikes. That's when he gets that little bit of separation, and he got such a quick release that there's not enough time for you to recover. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about moving without the basketball here in just a second. As we talked about steps playmaking, So Steph can pass

the basketball. In two thousand fourteen and two thousand fifteen, those two seasons combined, he averaged eight point one assists per game. He hasn't come close to that since, but that's what he averaged back then. So Steph can be Dame Lillard. He can be a heliocentric playmate maker. He just doesn't want to be because he knows that he can have the same type of impact moving without the

basketball as a decoy. One of the most common things that I've had you guys Steph fans throwing the comments over the course of the series is every time I bring up something like, hey, the top four playmakers in the league are Lebron, Luca Yokich, and Chris Paul and then there's kind of like a gap, and then you have your James Hardens and guys like that who are beneath him. Right, that's true, But it's also true what you guys have been saying that Steph belongs in that

list too. Now I don't think he belongs in that list. As a playmaker in the sense that like an on ball passer, because he's a very good passer, but he's not the same level as your Lebron's and your Lucas and your Yoki is right, but he is equal in impact with his gravity. So an honorary fifth member of those top playmakers in the league is Steph. He just

does it without the basketball. This is where STEP's gravity becomes a thing such a deadly shooter that teams panic chase him, and when defenders need to make quick decisions, if they see two options, they're gonna error towards Steph. This frequently leads to multiple defenders going with Steph as opposed to staying with their actual assignment, and in in a lot of cases they lose sight of their defensive scheme and they go off script and someone ends up wide open.

That's every bit is impactful, as Lebron driving and kicking to a shooter, as Luca driving and kicking to a shooter, as Yo Kids posting up and throwing a beautiful cross court pass that hits Michael Porter Jr. Right in the in the shooting pocket. It's just as impactful, just without the passing. So again, do I think Steph is as good of a passer as Lebron and as Luca and

Yokich and those guys. No, I don't, but he's every bit as impactful, more impactful as an offensive engine because what he does with his gravity, and this is where he's moving without the basketball becomes so important. It's not just so that he can generate open shots for himself, which he does. Steph's relentless in perpetual motion off the

basketball is constantly warping the defense. And as he's constantly warping the defense, he is constantly creating four on three opportunities at a minimum, if not even more crazy opportunities, sometimes even one on o opportunities for easy dunks under the basket. This is where Golden State role players become so important. We talked about this a little bit earlier in the show. This is why it's not just about star power. It's about fit and players fitting with their scheme.

This is why Russell Westbrook didn't fit with Lebron James, right. It's not just about your overall talent. It's about your ability as a unit to fill all the responsibilities that a basketball team has to fill in the previous season, Golden State targeted some discounted players like Kelly h Bray,

like Camp bays Moore that struggled with decision making. And so even though you know, like camp Baysemore shot over from three that season, like you think, oh, like that's a good fit, right, No, because the Golden State system doesn't depend on shooting nearly as much as it does on playmaking and ball handling from their role players and basketball like you, that's the huge inverse and difference between the Luca lebron Yokich led systems and the Staph led system.

Those guys are content on collapsing things in the paint and they need shooters to make plays. The openings in the Golden State system are around the basket, and so what you need are players that can run quick four on three's, quick three on two's, quick two on ones without turning the basketball over and getting layups and dunks excuse me, around the rim and making that transition last year to this year and putting smarter, more high i Q players into those spots that was a huge part

of white Golden State was so much more successful. And it's a it's a concept um that I find super fascinating about Golden State because it makes them so different from the other teams around the league. Two other things that I want to talk about with Steff with strengths. First, his defense. So the story here is early in his career, Steff was a bad defensive player, not a big shock. He was an outstanding offensive player, and he doesn't have

great physical tools. Those two are gonna pretty frequently combined to making a bad defensive player. But to his credit, him and Clay Thompson two thousand fourteen, I believe for the FIBA World Cup if I remember correctly, or the Feeble World Championships, whatever they call it, both Clay and Steph we're struggling defensively in camp and there was talk that they wouldn't be able to be in the rotation during that World Cup team unless they figured out things

on the defensive end. That was the summer where both of those eyes embraced it up here, which is step one. Take on the work. Understand that resources have to be devoted in that direction for you to become a great defensive player. Now for Clay Thompson, he actually became one of the best defensive wings in the league. Why is that because he's laterally quick and he's got good size, and so he actually became an all defense like impact

defensive player. Steph Curry didn't have the physical tools to do that, but he did become an above average defensive player. Helps that he's a little bit bigger and stronger than most of the guards around the league. Like he's six ft three, He's got a good amount of muscle mass that's going to help him be a good positional defender even against some bigger wings. But now is He's never gonna be an impact defensive player. We'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to his weaknesses.

But him converting the small guard prototype, which is almost always a bad defensive player, into an above average defensive player is one of the most underrated and most important things that allow out the Golden State dynasty to exist. Just that one thing. If he had just let that slip, if he just didn't care about that, this might all not have come together. And and that's a credit to Steph and just how important the defensive end of the floor is. And the last, but not least steps leadership.

I think step is the best leader in basketball. You know, I talked about how Lebron is the best guy I'd want if I had a really good team that had championship aspirations and all that and so on and so forth. But regardless of circumstance, great team, good team, bad team, horrible team, whatever it is, I can't think of a better guy than Steph Curry. There is no passive aggressiveness,

there is no bad body language. He knows how to handle young players, he knows how to handle veteran players, veteran players like Andreago Dolla worships the ground that he walks on. He's coachable. You can ask him to put in the hard work and do things that other stars don't want to do around this league. He's great at

managing personalities. You could not pick a better player to put into this position, and he demonstrated that over the course of the last three a few years, in a bunch of different circumstances, you know, two thousand sixteen, embracing Kevin Durant, making him feel like he was on common ground with him, even if other ex external factors ended up eventually getting to kd weathering the storm in when

things weren't going his way. There was no pouting. There He didn't make a scene, he didn't bring wine to the bench. He was he was a rock and I think that's a lot of credit to him. And it's funny because it's not it's he's not soft like the dudes a psychopath. One of my favorite Twitter accounts, friend of mine uh goes by Bobby Flabin, big Warriors fan. He calls him Bundy, like the serial killer. And that's

kind of the way I see Steph two. The dude is a complete in total psychopath who wants to snatch your heart out when he's outwardly focusing his energy on the opponent. Internally, he's as steady and sound and and never too high, never too low type of person that you could have in that spot. And and that's a

huge credit to him. Like I've always said, you could not pick a better foundational piece for an extended dynasty like a Spurs or like a Warriors than a guy like him, because of how steady he is on the lows and the highs. And that's why I've compared him to Tim Duncan. He's a better version of Tim Duncan alright, moving on the steps weaknesses. So there's only two because that's how well rounded stuff is. Now one of them is pretty significant. I'll go with the light, the small one. First.

He's loose with the basketball, doesn't take great care of the basketball. He gets a little bit cute with his drible combination sometimes and we'll try some ballsy passes and things like that in in in high leverage situations, and it's burned stuff before see the two thousands sixteen finals. This manifests mostly when he's handling traps, and his size

can be a little bit of an issue here. He's very good at navigating traps in the aggregate, but he is prone to some turnovers in that situation just because of his lack of size. That's a small weakness. This is STEP's only other weaknesses and it's a big one, and it's the reason why he's not number one on this list, and it's the reason why he may never have been number one um. But it's again it has

to be addressed here. So Steph is not capable of leaving a physical imprint on the game on either end of the floor. So in isolation situations, he needs a quickness mismatch. He needs to get a big on a switch in order to consistently generate good shots. Yes he can cook wins. Yes he can score against Kauai, Yes he can score against Katie. Yes he can score against

all the best perimeter defenders in the league. I'm not saying he can't, but it's harder for him to do that than the other big like Lebron, Katie Kawai, Luca Jannest. Those guys still feel like they can consistently get quality shots against each other in individual matchups because of their physical tools. Steph typically needs to get big guys on switches to become a highly effective ISO player. To his credit, that's why he doesn't mess around with ISOs that often.

That's why he's a super low volume isolation player compared to his peers around the league. He's very selective with the way he does that. That's the only way it impacts offensively. The physical imprint thing is really on the defensive end of the floor, so his ceiling, with his effort and focus on the defensive end of the floor is above average. He can never be a better defender than what he is right now, which is serviceable in

a good defensive scheme. Guys like Janice Kevin Durant Lebron more so and his prime, but Lebron in general, Kawhi Leonard. They are capable of dominating games defensively. They are impact defensive players. They can swing outcomes with what they do defensively, which is something that step cannot do. This is the biggest reason why I have Janice ahead of Steph number one on this list. Janice is deeply impactful on the defensive end of the floor. He can erase well run

offenses by himself. I gave the example of Luca having to pull him into isolation defense because he was blowing everything up with his help on the back end. You guys probably remember playing Finals A very famous playing Janice's career drop coverage against Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton. Or he's up high enough to dissuade Devin Booker from taking the shot and force him to throw a lot, but still turn and recover any race eight and at the rim.

That is using his physical tools to dominate a basketball game on the defensive end of the floor, even on offense when when his shots not falling, when things are not going his way offensively, Janice can bulldoze his way to thirty five points a game because of his physical tools. That's it. That that those that's the only weakness I

can really hammer home with Steph. And it's a credit to him because all of those other guys at the top of the list were capable of inflicting their physicality on the game in a way that it was literally a huge chunk of their impact on winning. And Steph without those tools is gonna be extremely high on my all time rankings because of how good he is in

everything else. So it's a credit to Steph. But that is the difference between him and Lebron when he was at his peak, or him and Janice when he was at his peak, is those guys can just think about all the defensive moment it's of Lebron's career. You know what he did defensively to the Spurs in the two thousand thirteen finals, what he did defensively to the Warriors in two thousand sixteen eracing but probably would have amounted

to the game winning layup from Montrea Guadala. And again, like Steph has overcome this to get where he's gotten. But that's the one big red flag with him, that's the one big weakness on offense. He can't inflict his physicality, and on defense, he can't inflict his physicality. All right, moving on to greatest hopes, So it's hard to hope

for more. I mean, his career is unassailable. Now, there was kind of a little bit of a question mark, an unfair one in my opinion, but there was a little bit of question mark about whether or not he'd be able to carry a team. He resolved that this year resoundingly. Andrew Wiggins is your best player, and you win a champion your best teammate, and you win a championship, you're in a select few. You're in some select company. There. What becomes really interesting for Steph is his goat case.

Now this is not relevant now, but let's say, for the sake of argument, that the Warriors win two additional titles. Okay, he's not going to have the long, extended success that Lebron has. He's not going to have the short, unrelenting

dominance that Michael Jordan had. But what he could have is a better version of Tim Duncan's career, an extended window of a dynasty where maybe he was never the best player in the world, but he was always right there in his consistent success over that span in the example that he set for his organization led to a lot of success. Now, again, this is all in the eye of the beholder. Lebron fans will be like, I'd

rather have twenty years of this. MJ fans are like, dude, six titles in eight years, that's dominance, That's what I want. But there will be a case for Steph and the case will be dynasty Bedrock, Dynasty Foundation, and he was literally the core piece that made everything work for arguably the best dynasty and the most talented era in NBA history.

That will be his case. Greatest fears. My greatest fear for Steff is that he doesn't get an opportunity to win that fifth and sixth title because of Golden State betting their future on some iffy prospects. So as we go down the line, Jordan Pool had a really good season last year, But I kind of think Jordan Pool has a ceiling of being a fringe All Star. He's very bad defensively right now compared to most of the

players that are above him in league standing. Although he was functional from time to time for Golden State, and he's not again impactful enough with his physicality offensively to become more efficient, much more efficient than he is right now. I think that's a safe bet for Jordan Pool is he'll get He'll make a few All Star teams for Golden State. Jonathan Cominga has tantalizing potential, but he also could be the lesser version of Jeff Green idding Moses

Moody is a role player. And then James Wiseman. Yeah, he could beat Kevin Garnett, but he also could be something a hell of a lot less than that. Now, that all might pan out fine, because if Comingo becomes a dominant two way wing and Jordan Pool is a fringe All Star and James Wiseman becomes KG Light, the Warriors are gonna be really good. They'll be fine. But there's a there's a lot of uh, there's a lot

of iffiness there. It could go either way, and if that goes south, the Warriors could be in a situation where they have a lot of money on the books without a lot of talent. The second thing that scares me is Clay and Draymond's bodies. A Obviously, with the back to back catastrophic injuries, Draymond has been having back stuff recently. If those guys age fast, that could be another thing that closes this window early, so hopefully for

Steph's sake. Um, those two things don't happen alright, biggest what if in Steph's career? So this is an interesting one. There's and there's a bunch of them, just like with all these other players, like, oh, what if you know, Draymond Green doesn't get suspended? What if, uh, you know, what if Kevin Durant never comes to Golden State. There's a bunch of what IF's, right. The one that I was thinking of is what if Golden State gave up

on his ankles? From what I understand, and of course there's conflicting reporting with all of this stuff, but from what I understand, there was a decision point for the Warriors where they were trying to decide whether to stick with Monte Ellis or to lean into Steph Curry moving forward, and cooler heads prevailed and they decided to go with Steph Curry. They made him the four year, forty four million dollar offer or whatever it was, and the rest

is history. But there's a version of that story where they go his ankles are shot, this guy is never gonna amount to anything. Let's ship him off and maybe he ends up in a lesser organization without the level of competency that Joe Lake of and uh and the rest of the Warriors front office, Bob Myers and Steve Kerr and all them. He ended up doing great over there, but there could have been a lesser version of that story where he would have struggled to overcome the incompetence.

Unthankful that didn't happen. Why, because I think the Golden State model is really important to the future of the NBA. I don't know what the specifics are. Kevin Durant was on Twitter shooting this down yesterday. Who the hell knows what he if he knows or not what the deal is um, but there's gonna be something in my opinion, that happens in the next CBA negotiations that tries to

limit some player movement. And I need that to happen for the health of the league because Golden State has demonstrated to us the value in that building a loyal fan base over the course of a decade that will ride or die with these guys because they're in the same jersey year in and year out. The continuity in the way that that leads to higher quality basketball because the players have a ton of experience playing with each other and you're directly seeing that amount to enormous revenue.

As boss Man calling Coward laid out for us in the finals when he said that the Warriors make I think he said something like crazy like seven million in revenue a year. That's the value in the Golden State model. And that doesn't happen without Steph. And so I'm glad that that what if didn't go that way, and I'm thankful that the Golden State Warriors bet on him and it was a bet that paid off. But yeah, I

have step at number two. You know, it's it's a little bit it's a little bit funky because I I'm one of those guys that, like, man, when you're the best, when you're the best player on the team that wins the championship and you're a bona fide top tier superstar, there's a tendency to want to put him at number one. I know I've done that with Lebron over the years, but typically that's when there's not a player like Janice

and that's what makes you honest. So interesting. It's just like prime Lebron from two thousand twelve to two thousand and twenty, where it's like, man, I'm not sure if there's anybody at his level, and we're gonna get into a lot deeper into Honest tomorrow. Um, but I don't think it's to be clear to Steph fans out there. I don't think it's disrespectful to Steph to say he's behind you. Honice Janice is a freak of nature. We're

gonna get into his game tomorrow. It's a step being number two at this phase two, especially after what happened in the previous two years, is an amazing accomplishment. I enjoyed diving into his game and it's gonna be fun getting into Honest tomorrow. The volume