Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: Why Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time

day this September. Check the app to see what you get. Don't wait till kickoff to get in on this hype. Download the Draftking Sportsbook app now and use code hoops. New customers get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five dollars. That's code hoops Hoops

only on Draftking Sportsbook. The Crown is Yours gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler or visit one eight hundred gambler dot Net In New York call eight seve seven seven eight Hope and Why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three sixty nine. In Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort

in Kansas twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario, cdkang dot co slash football for eligibility terms and responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far.

We are live on AMPS. If you're watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast feeds, don't forget that AMP is the very first place that you guys can get these shows. We are continuing our top twenty five players in the last twenty five years today with number four Steph Curry. It's gonna be a fun one. And then I've got two mail bag questions as well in the show. You guys know the jope before we get started. To subscribe to the Volumes 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 SHO announcements, and for whatever reason, you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight also looking for more mailbag questions over the course of the rest of this week and potentially into the future, so drop those into the YouTube comments.

I saw several people complaining in the last video that we've been doing the mail back questions off the top, so I'm gonna listen to you guys and swap it. We're gonna move the player rankings piece to the front of the show, and then we'll do the mail bag questions at the end. Just you guys know, for future reference. Our YouTube team works really hard to add chapters. So if I'm ever talking about something that you could care less about, just go to the chapters and you could

probably find the topic that you're specifically interested in. When we get into the regular season and you guys know, I'm hitting on like six or seven different topics a day, sometimes that tool can be useful for you guys, So you'll find that again in the description. Our YouTube team works really hard on that. But for today, we'll start with Steph and then we'll hit the mailback questions at

the very end. So number four, Steph Curry is accolades, four time NBA champion, best player on two championship teams, best or second best player on two championship teams. That's kind of what I said about KD. I'm not going to give either of them credit or for being one or two on that team. I'm just gonna keep it

vague for both of them. Four time first team All NBA, nine time All NBA overall, won the scoring Champion, was the scoring champion in twenty sixteen in twenty twenty one, led the league in steals in twenty sixteen, won back to back regular season MVPs in twenty fifteen in twenty sixteen, and won the NBA Finals MVP in twenty and twenty two. Now, to be clear, I credit Steph as a two time Finals MVP. I thought he deserved to win the in

twenty fifteen. That stretched, there was a really bizarre stretch from NBA voters where they did this really weird thing where they kept like just hawking the box score and following narratives instead of looking at the obvious structure of the basketball team, like Steph was getting blitzed on every single pick and roll out thirty feet from the basket, and the Warriors were playing four on three in the back end, and Andrea Guadala was getting wide open back

door cut dunks out of the weak side corner and wide open threes out of the weak side corner, and everyone looked at his points per game numbers, and then the fact that he held Lebron to below average efficiency, which was more a product of Kyrie and Kevin Love being out and the Warriors really loading up on him.

There was really no legitimate case for Andrea A. Guidala to win the Finals MVP in twenty fifteen, except for people, especially in the media, buying into narratives and box scores and not really understanding what was happening on the basketball team. Steph Curry was by far the best player on the team. He was the engine that made everything work. That was the case from the first game of the season all the way through to the end of the NBA Championship.

Steph was the one who played super well in the pivotal Game five game at home in Golden State, like he deserved to win Finals MVP. That's just the way I see it. I think that anybody who points to you know, one Finals MVP as a downside for Steph is being dishonest. In that particular case, I think that he was clearly the best player on two championship teams and deserves credit as such. His claim to fame is

that he was the best shooter ever. Now, to be clear, simply referring to Steph as the best shooter ever is a really big underrepresentation of what Steph can do as a basketball player. He was also a top five ball handler ever. He's a very gifted scorer. Remember, scoring to

me is like an art. It's like an improvisational shot making thing and like it's hard to explain, but like a good score has just a natural feel for how to generate baskets in the margins of basketball, like outside of your wide open stuff that comes in the flow of offense, and Steph has always been very good at that. He's the very best off ball player in NBA history.

He's also an excellent passer. Remember when Mark Jackson had him on the ball for the most part, he averaged nine assists per game in twenty fourteen, before Steve Kirk came in and moved him into a lot more off ball situations. He's also a savage competitor. I think he's the best leader in the game right now. There's no drama with Steph. There's no highs and lows. He just keeps a good, even keel throughout the season. He only cares about winning, doesn't give a shit about media or

the way that he's talked about. That's why he invited Kevin Durant into that situation. I don't think many stars in NBA history would have done so. Steph just only cares about winning, and I think that that speaks very highly to the type of leader that he is. But make no mistake, he is the greatest shooter to ever touch a basketball as well. So for fun, I put together three stats for you guys to demonstrate just how far ahead of the field Steph is as a shooter.

Y one, Steph has made three point eight threes per game in his career. Nobody else in NBA history is over three point two points per game, so a significant gap there. He also, since the twenty sixteen MVP season, is averaging four point seven three pointers made per game. Number two, Steph has four seasons with at least three hundred made threes. The rest of the players in NBA history combine for only two. Last, but not least, in the twenty sixteen season, Steph made two hundred and twenty

threes off the dribble. Nobody else in the league made more than one hundred and twenty six ninety four more off the dribble threes than anybody else in the league. Among the other eighteen players in the league who made at least fifty pull up threes that season, not a single one of them managed to crack forty percent, and Steph shot forty four percent on them. He basically invented high volume pull up three point shooting, and since then

the league has been trying to catch up. And the crazy thing is, even though the league has been trying to catch up, Steph has still maintained his lead as the best pull up jump shooter in the league. This season, there were forty seven players who attempted at least three hundred pull up jump shots, and Steph was the only player in that list to crack sixty percent in effective

field goal percentage. He shot forty six percent on pull up twos in one hundred and made one hundred and forty nine pull up threes at forty three percent, which came out to his sixty one percent effective field goal percentage. Only guy in the league with over three hundred makes to be over or over three hundred attempts to be over sixty percent effective field goal percentage. The very best shooter in NBA history, and it is not close now.

Steph's crowning achievement, in my opinion, was winning the twenty twenty two NBA Championship and Finals MVP. Now, a lot of you guys might think unanimous MVP in twenty sixteen, right, But I want to tell his story because I think Steph's career path is one of the more interesting career

paths from any star in NBA history. And there was a narrative that formed from twenty fifteen to right before he won the Championship in twenty twenty two that I don't think was particularly fair, not really close to fair, but it was kind of the prevailing opinion around the NBA fan bases outside of Golden State. Obviously Golden State fans, you got to remember, like within that like specific kind of bubble. Everyone thinks Steph's the best of Most of

them think stepfs of buff Lebron all time. A lot of them think Steph has been the best player in the league for the better part of a decade. So obviously you got to kind of set the Warriors fans aside for a second and look at the rest of the league and the rest of fans. The vast majority of basketball fans kind of bought into this narrative for a while. And I think that Steph resoundingly got rid of and proved that narrative false in the twenty twenty

two NBA Finals. And so I want to kind of paint a picture of Steph's career and kind of explain just what was at stake when we got to that NBA Finals series against Boston. So again, we got to look at the beginning. Steph does not get recruited behind major college programs, go to Davidson and kicks everyone's ass in college. Anyway, he slips to seventh in the draft and goes behind guards like Tyreek Evans and Ricky Rubio and Johnny Flynn. A lot of concerns about his size

and athleticism right from scouts. His early career shows some promise, but then he runs into some ankle injuries. He ends up sitting out most of the twenty twelve season to get his ankles right, and as a result, ends up

signing a discounted contract. If I remember correctly, it was four years, forty four million that ended up being one of the primary factors in them being able to sign Kevin Durant as we look into the future, So he comes back in twenty thirteen and immediately pops averages twenty three, four and seven. The Warriors go forty seven and thirty five. They win a first round series against Denver, and then

Steph has this crazy Game one against the Spurs. It's kind of like his coming out party in the playoffs, drops forty four in a double overtime loss. They end up taking the Spurs to six games, but the Spurs do eventually get him under control, but Steph kind of pops onto the scene as a legitimate playoff performer. Right then we go into twenty fourteen, You're going to see a rapid is set here from Steph makes the All NBA team for the first time, finish his second team

all NBA finishes sixth in MVP voting. The Warriors go fifty one and thirty one and they lose a seven game or heartbreak to the Clippers. As a matter of fact, the Warriors were actually up by one with just over two minutes left in Game seven, but Blake Griffin takes over down the stretch. The Clippers would run this like high iso for Blake Griffin right at the top of the key, and he did it twice against Draymond in

the final minutes and got two big buckets. And then DeAndre Jordan had a massive block on Steph Curry at the rim. So the Clippers end up pulling out a Game seven and the Warriors go home in the first round. But then in twenty fifteen and the summer coming into that season, so summer of twenty fourteen, they get rid of Mark Jackson. They bring in Steve Kerr. Steve Kerr

fundamentally changes the way the Warriors play offense. He has this obsession with the total number of passes that the team has and he wants to lead the league in total number of passes made. They immediately do their offense skyrockets. They finish sixty seven and fifteen, seven games ahead of the rest of the field in the NBA standings that year.

Steph finishes the season averaging twenty four points, four rebounds, and eight assists, makes First Team All NBA for the first time, wins his first MVP award, and the Warriors win the NBA Championship. And like I said, he didn't get the Finals MVP, but Steph absolutely should have gotten the MVP in twenty fifteen. It was one of the biggest travesty award decisions in NBA history in my opinion. So twenty sixteen, again, I'm not putting this as Steph's

crowning achievement. What I am putting this at is what I think is the coolest moment of Steph's career. So you gotta look at the context here. He's already the NBA's defending MVP, He's already the defending champion and should be defending Finals MVP, but Steph is such a psychopath that he decides he's not good enough. Steph since then has said that he was obsessed in the summer of

twenty fifteen with leg strength. Thing that I talk about all the time with young basketball players and I've talked about a lot on this show, like strength is one of the most under one of the most underrated elements of skill development that doesn't get talked about or or emphasized enough with young players. And the reason why is a lot of people think of it as just this thing that's loosely associated with dunking. But like, the reality is is leg strength is the number one element in

any sort of movement jump shooting. So again, if you think of your jump shot as like a machine, right, like a muscle memory machine. If you're a really good jump shooter, you have crafted a form that you can

replicate thousands and thousands and thousands of times. And as a result, like in any sort of static, stand still environment, like most of the best shooters in the world shoot over seventy percent on stand still jump shots, right, and the very very best will be up over eighty ninety, Like STEP's over ninety percent on stand still jump shots.

But most of the top tier shooters in the world are over eighty percent, and the really really good ones are up over seventy percent, right, Like that's your muscle memory, right, But then you get into a game and you're running up and down in transition, you're chasing guys around on defense.

The game is physical, and so that kind of muscle memory gets disrupted, and that gets even further disrupted when you start taking movement shots, because now not only are you fatigued from the other elements of the game, but you're flying off of screens or you're making a move off of the dribble to get into a dribble, combination, footwork, whatever it is to get to a pull up three

right or a pull up jump shot right. So in those situations, all of the movement that precedes the shot, your leg strength is what allows you to stop on a dime wherever you're at and get the appropriate amount of lift so that you can go to your muscle memory that you practice so much in standstill situations. That's how you get to your release right. And obviously you practice that leg strength outside of the weight room on the court when you're practicing those dribble jump shots and

movement jump shots as well. But essentially, your leg strength is what allows you to get into that shot off of any sort of movement or any sort of fatigue situation.

And Steph was obsessed with leg strength in the summer of twenty fifteen, and so he goes up a massive level, raises his scoring average by six point three points per game, makes one hundred and sixteen more threes than he did in twenty fifteen, including sixty nine more pull up threes, averages a career high five point four rebounds per game,

leads the league in steals. So, like, imagine how insane of a competitor you'd have to be to literally be sitting on top of the basketball world raigning MVP, should be raining NBA Finals, MVP defending champion, and you're like, I'm not close to as good as I want to be. I'm going to get way better. He literally finished fourth in Most Improved Player voting in twenty sixteen. I think it's one of the coolest stories from Steph Curry's career

because it demonstrates that he's a legitimate psychopath competitor. What ended up happening as a result, the Warriors win seventy three games, which was an NBA record, They make it to the NBA Finals, and then they run into the second best basketball player ever to touch the earth at the absolute peak of his powers in Lebron James and a red hot Kyrie Irving and they end up losing a heartbreaker in seven games, and so from there, that's

where the narrative starts to form. This is the narrative that I'm referring to that culminates in the twenty twenty two finals. So in twenty fifteen, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love are hurt, right, and so the Calves still take them to six, with guys like Timofey Mozgov and Matthew Delvdova and James Jones getting significant minutes in that series, and so you know, everyone's like, okay, like maybe there's

some luck at play there. Then in twenty sixteen, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love are healthy and the Calves win, and so the narrative starts to form. Right, Steph got lucky, didn't even win finals, MVP. Right, people start to undercut Steph as a player. Then we go into twenty seventeen and Steph's again. We talked about Steph's leadership earlier, but like Steph's leadership and him not giving a shit about the narrative and him not giving a shit about what

people outside of the Warriors organization thinks. He just cares about winning basketball games, So he invites and takes good care of KD in his transition coming into Golden State. Right, and again, you have to understand Steph's smart guy like KD. I don't think knew any better. Like I said this in the KD video, I think KD looked at the situation and was like, I just want to play the

best basketball of my career. All I care about is basketball, So I'm gonna go play with the Warriors, and they're gonna help me become a better basketball player. I think KD was kind of oblivious to the potential downsides of that narrative, right. I think Steph knew and just didn't care. I think Steph knew that if he brought in KD that it would do some damage to his reputation around the league. And I just literally think he doesn't give a shit. I think all he cares about is winning.

And again that's why I say he's the best leader in the NBA. So naturally, the KD Steph Warriors, whoop everyone's asked. They won sixty seven games, they won fifteen consecutive playoff games, they win the title, they win again in twenty eighteen. Now, to be clear, like I said, Steph doesn't care. He's a three time champion. The Warrior are now the most valuable franchise in the NBA. So

Steph's doing great in this particular situation. But the narrative is growing, right because KD wins both finals MVPs in those two years. Remember KD and Lebron are filming commercials together. Remember that Uber commercial with I think it was the two of them and carry Champion if I remember correctly. But they're riding around in an uber like openly calling themselves the two best players in the world. And now, to be clear, I thought that at this point it

was a tier of three players. I thought it was Lebron, Steph, and KD all on the top tier of the league, with Lebron having a slight edge over the other two guys. But Lebron and KD were painting this narrative like it

was them too and then everybody else. And I to be like, like I said, not only do I think Steph was on the same tier as those guys, but I think Steph is clearly demonstrated that he's a better player than Kevin Durant in his career, right, So like so again, he's got four championships and two of them outside of the KD years, Right, So Steph has won

that battle. But again, I'm just talking about the narrative and the narrative that's building at this point in time circa the summer of two tenty eighteen is that it's Lebron and KD and then everyone else, and Steph needed KD to come in and save him, right, Like, that's the narrative. Right. Then it gets worse because from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one, KD gets hurt in the twenty nineteen playoffs and they lose in the finals, which

only furthers that narrative. Bob Myers makes a couple of tough decisions, bringing in guys like Kent Basmore and Kelly Ubre who weren't great fits in the Warriors system, and Klay Thompson obviously is out for two years with the

Achilles injury and the ACL injury. Steph ends up missing the playoffs twice in a row, and at the same time, Lebron wins his fourth championship in fourth finals MVP with the Lakers in twenty twenty and KD has this kind of heroic playoff run in twenty twenty one where he nearly beats the Bucks by himself with injured Kevin excuse me, with Kyrie Irving out of the lineup and James Harden playing on a bad hamstring, right, So like, now the

narrative is just officially out of control. Right, steph isn't even on the same level as these guys. In a lot of these conversations, everyone's saying he got lucky in twenty fifteen, and Kad came in and carried him in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, now he can't even make the playoffs. To make things worse, Lebron hits a game winner over him in the in the play in tournament, right, so like or not like, it's just it's just completely

out of control at this point. So it gets so out of control that NBA players are starting to take shots at the Warriors. You guys might remember in twenty twenty one, at the beginning of the season, we get an actual quote from Damian Lillard after the fifth game of the regular season. Damian Lillard says, quote, He's seeing that it's tough to get those quality looks. Now it's different than what it looked like in the last four

to five years. Actual quote from Damian Lillard, actual peer in the league, dancing on Steph's grave, for lack of a better term, finding a respectful, passive, aggressive way right to kind of dance on Steph's grave. This what was funny about it. That was the fifth game of the season, and I think the war were two and five in the or two and three in the first five games. Steph was shooting forty two percent from the field and thirty two percent from three through the first five games.

But here's the problem. The Blazers have to play the Warriors two nights later and Steph drops a career high sixty two points. Davian Lillard did a win, like I said, an absolute savage competitor in that season. In the twenty twenty one season where they missed the playoffs, he won the scoring title. He averaged thirty two points per game on sixty six percent true shooting, which is absolutely bonkers. Makes first team All NBA, finishes third in MVP voting.

The Warriors actually went thirty seven and twenty six when Steph played, which is an excellent record. But like I said, the roster was weird. They had some poorly fitting role players, and Steph gets that bizarre tailbone injury where he falls. I think it was like he fell down and landed on a step in the stadium if I remember correctly. Golden State goes two and seven in the games where Steph doesn't play that year, so they end up in the play in tournament. That's when step hit lebron hits

that game, winning three. Then they dropped that game to Memphis, and suddenly Steph's like kind of ridiculously good season just gets swept under the rug. And that narrative, like I'm talking about, is kind of stronger than it's ever been. Coming into twenty twenty two, Bob Myers makes a couple

of really smart adjustments to the roster. He brings in gets rid of Kelly Uberan camp Baysmore, brings in really smart ball movers that are like good players that fit in the Warrior system, and Namanya bi Elitza out of Porter and Gary Payton. They come out the gates red hot. They win eighteen of their first twenty games. Steph looks like he's in peak form. In the first twenty games.

He averages twenty nine, six, and seven and shoots forty two percent from three on thirteen three attemps three point

attempts per game. But then Steph, if you guys remember, Steph gets close to the all time three point record and it kind of just triggers this like weird phase of Warriors games where they're a little distracted and Steph's shot selection isn't as good as it usually is because he's jacking up three, he's trying to break the record, and he ends up shooting just thirty six percent from three for the rest of the season. Then the Warriors start dropping games. They had a two to eight stretch

with Steph in the lineup. Steph ends up spraining a ligament in his foot and missing the end of the regular season. The Warriors finish in their last twenty eight games twelve and sixteen. You know, And again the reason why I tell all of this story is just to build up what was at stake going into that twenty twenty two playoff run. You can imagine had they not won,

just the way that Steph's career would be talked about. Right, everything was teetering on the brink right around the time of that foot injury right, because Steph had just finished his first full regular season of his career where he shot below forty percent from three. He averaged just twenty five and a half points per game, which was his lowest mark in five years. Steph is thirty three years

old at this point. Those of you guys who'll listened to the show, you'll remember I was saying at the time, like, it's one of two things. It's either just a really weird, bizarre, extended slump or this is the beginning of Steph's decline. And I said, we're gonna find out in the playoffs.

And boy did we find out, because now every championship team catches a break, right, And the break that this particular championship team broke got was the Denver Nuggets right in the first round because Jamal Murray Michael Porter Junior are out, so Denver's just doesn't have the talent. So

Steph gets to work his way back in. Because Steph didn't play at all in the regular season after the foot injury, he came off the bench in the first four games of the Nugget series and got to kind of work his way back against the limited Nuggets team, right, which was super important for the Warriors because it just kind of gave him essentially like a mini little training camp in the playoffs to get ready for the rest of the playoff run. But most importantly, Steph got out

of his slump. But he averaged twenty eight points per game in that series and shot over forty percent from three, which are big indicators of what we expect from Steph when he's at his absolute peak. Then we go into the Memphis series, Game four, they're up two games to one. Steph scores eighteen points in the fourth quarter to go up three to one. Not Steph's last great Game four in that playoff run either, We'll get to that in a second. They close the Mountain six. They beat Dallas

in five. That was the only time I was stupid enough to pick against the Warriors in that playoff run. I thought Luco was gonna have some success against Golden State's lack of perimeter size, just a hunting matchups the way he did against Phoenix, but Wiggins just did an unbelievable job on him, and Luca never really look a put up numbers in that series, but he never really had control of the series. Warriors put together a really

good team effort. They had six players in that series average double figures and they advanced to the NBA Finals. So the Boston series was interesting because Golden State was a slight favorite going in in Vegas. I think they were right around a minus one fifty favorite. I actually picked Golden State to win in seven. But if you guys remember what I said before the series, it was gonna be tough, and the reason why I picked it to go long was because I said Boston had the

most talented roster in the NBA. They had demonstrated in the first three rounds of the playoffs that they were inexperienced. Basketball at Q was a shortcoming. They had really bad transition defense, they struggled with decision making from their stars, But in terms of sheer talent, they were the most talented roster in the league still are to this day. And in addition to that, I thought they had the best half court defense that I've seen in this last

like five to ten year era. Right they were outstanding half court defense, and they jumped Golden State to start that series. They had that crazy fourth quarter in Game one, then they win Game three at home and they're up two games to one, with an opportunity at home to go up three games to one. That's when Steph in Game four goes crazy. So Boston jumps out to an eleven to four lead. The crowd's going crazy. Steph scores forty three points. I was going back to watch the

game today. He hit five pull up threes off the dribble in that game. Just go watch every bucket Steph made in Game four of this Boston series. This sheer degree of difficulty was off the charts on almost every single shot he made in this game. It was one of the most incredible shot making performances in NBA history. Two massive shots at the end of the fourth quarter.

Drives around Robert Williams for a big floater to put him up three, and then hits the dagger over Derek White on the right wing, a little jab step three to put him up by six, and they steal Game four, and then they go home and win again. You gotta think, like, if they lose that game, they're down three games to one,

like Boston probably wins the series. If Steph doesn't do that in Game four instead, they go home and they win to go up three to two and then Steph pours in another thirty four in Game six, and the Warriors win the NBA Championship. Steph finally gets the Finals MVP he deserved a long time ago. And now the narrative looks stupid because again, like as we look back,

everything hinged on that stupid narrative. Everything hinged that Steph was not at the same level as these guys at the top of the league, that he needed injury luck to win in twenty fifteen, that he couldn't beat Lebron when he was healthy with his whole team, That he needed KD to come in and win a championship. Oh look, KD got hurt and they lost in the finals. Oh look,

they missed the playoffs twice after KD left. Like, the narrative was hinged on this idea that Steph wasn't very good and that he wasn't capable of doing something like beating a more talented team, you know, as the sole offensive engine on a basketball team on the way to an NBA championship. He totally crumpled up and threw that entire narrative in the dumpster. And most importantly, now it kind of paints everything else in a different light. Now as you look back, you don't look at it as

Steph getting carried along the way. Now you look at it and you have to you have to acknowledge the consistent greatness from Steph from twenty fifteen through to this year. And like I told you guys in that playoff run that I was rooting for Steph and that was the reason why, because like you know how it is. I hate the narratives personally because like I'm a big basketball fan and so like you guys know, I'm a huge Lebron James fan, and like there's this narrative push with

Lebron to try to make him the goat. I literally saw a Rich Paul go on a podcast the other day and say that he's the goat because he dealt with media pressure. And I'm like, can we make a basketball case for anything anymore? Like can we just be like you guys heard, like my goat case for Lebron was longevity and variety, all the different ways that he led different teams to success along the way. It's like

people can't just talk basketball anymore. It can't just be like it can't just be like, oh, Steph was a bonafide superstar, top tier superstar. And yeah, Kevin Durant coming in as another bonafide top tier superstar helped them win two championships. But that doesn't make Steph not a superstar. That doesn't mean Steph's not as good as KD or not as good as Lebron, Like he was very much on the same level as those guys. The narratives took

away from the basketball that was taking place. And again, like in that twenty twenty one season, they missed the playoffs and Steph was easily the best regular season player that year. Opinion like do you remember the springtime? Do you guys remember the springtime? In twenty twenty one, Steph

was must see television. I still remember to this day, driving from a ski trip from Breckenridge back into Denver in a blizzard, watching on my phone as Steph Curry was lighting somebody on fire in a random regular season game, going crazy in the second. I don't even remember who they were playing, because there were literally dozens of games like this in that spring. Like what bothered me is like and again like this is where it gets to we talk about like the benefit of the doubt and

why I hate minimizing championships. Why do I hate minimizing championships Because in twenty fifteen, Steph Curry won an NBA championship. His team was seven games better than everybody in the regular season. He won regular season MVP. Did they catch a break in the NBA Finals, Sure, but every championship team catches a break. Like I said, he hoisted the damn trophy. That should have stamped him for the rest

of his career as a proven, bona fide superstar. That should have colored everything else that we saw from Steph for the rest of his career. But instead, because of the narrative based culture outside of the Warriors fan base, everybody wanted to undercut everything Steph was doing. Like I said, even Dame Lillard was stepping up and taking shots at his expense. And So what I loved about that twenty twenty two championship is it just recolored and redefined everything

from Steph's career. Now there's these book ends right now. It's like, instead of twenty fifteen being the beginning of his phase of luck, now it's twenty fifteen is the beginning of Steph's incredible superstar career. In twenty twenty two is potentially we'll see Steph has an opportunity again in

the future to win. But twenty twenty two is like that crowning achievement that just solidifies and proves that everything that took place over the over that eight year span was at the same level as everybody else that was at the top of the league. Now, I think Steph is firmly the second best player of this era. And when I say era, I mean just like this this particular era, not the since nineteen ninety eight, like this list, but in this particular era, I think he's firmly the

fifth best perimeter player of all time. I moved him past Larry Bird after that twenty twenty two championship, and as we go back over the last twenty five years, I think he's the fourth best player in the post MJ era to ever touch a basketball court. So I like, and you know what's great is remember that slump that

we were talking about. Well, not only did he prove it wrong in the playoffs by shooting forty percent from three, but in this regular season this past year, twenty nine six and six on sixty six percent true shooting and forty three percent from three on high volume, same old dominant Steph. Now all this other stuff went wrong for the Warriors. I won't get into it because we've talked about that at length on this show, but like I

just it just feels good. It feels good as a fan of the game and as a fan of staph. Like I say, Lebron's my favorite player, Steph is my second favorite player in the league. Love. I love his demeanor. His demeanor is what won me over. Just everything that makes him the type of basketball player that he is up here is what won me over with Steph. And I've become one of his biggest fans, and it was really cool to see that crowning achievement kind of change

the way that he's perceived around the league. And now everyone's a fan, a Steph fan, and now everyone's on board with it. Right, biggest what if? What if KD had not come to the Warriors in twenty sixteen. Like I said before, I admire the hell out of Steph for bringing KD in in twenty sixteen, but it definitely hurt his perception around the league. I think he knew it would and I just think he didn't care. But

let's pretend for the sake of this, what if. What if Steph doesn't get KD in twenty sixteen, I think he probably still gets a title anyway sometime somewhere in the twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen range, Like I think Lebron probably gets another one in there, and Steph probably gets another one in there. Right, But here's the thing. Does Steph with three titles but no KD does that guy get more respect around the basketball world? I think so?

And so that's the thing, Like we talked about, the KD thing kind of was used against Steph in a lot of ways, Like it's crazy for both players, Like that's two NBA championships, legitimate Larry O'Brien trophies, and for both players, For both KD and Steph, those two championships are viewed as incredibly low level accomplishments by most people, again outside of the Warriors fan base, like people just

don't care. And so had he gotten one without KD in the middle there you look back at a three championship career where he's clearly the best player on all three teams. I think probably avoids some of the narrative struggle that he dealt with. But again, Staph doesn't give a shit. All he cares about is winning. He wanted KD, he got KD, and as a result, he's got four NBA championships, which not many people in NBA history do. All right, let's move on to our mailbag question. So

I've got two of them for you today. First one from James Hi Jason. In a previous video, you mentioned you don't believe in hypotheticals and are more interested in evaluating players on what exactly happened. Why then, is there a section with each player that focuses on their what if? So, to be clear, the what if section is just for fun. We are in the middle of the NBA off season.

Like I was looking at the calendar this morning, I think I think the first preseason game is a month from today, October fifth, which good news for you guys. I talked about doing fifteen season previews that was gonna cut off fifteen teams, but I'm actually gonna push it to four weeks and We're gonna do twenty season previous so I'm gonna do full season previews for twenty NBA teams starting next Monday. But like we just have a lot of time to kill over the course of the summer.

This has been just this has been probably the most boring NBA off season that I can remember. There's just been literally nothing that's happened, and so, you know, we're just finding ways to kill time. And so I'll talk about what if at the end of something like this in a brief context, just for fun. But when I really try to think about where I rank these guys, I'm not gonna factor that in. Like That's why I spent you know, thirty seconds on steps what if and

a lot more time on everything else. It's it's again, I don't think it matters when I'm ranking players, or I don't think it should for other people. But obviously, uh, for fun, I'll do it in a situation like this. All right, one more mailbag question. After Lebron retires, will you have a new favorite NBA player? If yes, who will it be and why so? I After Lebron retires,

I will have favorite players, but nothing like Lebron. Obviously, as you guys know, I became a fan of Lebron when I was basically a kid, So uh, for me, like that that that like that there's like a weird childhood sentimentality thing that's going on there, Right, And so I'll never be as much of a fan of a player as I was of Lebron. It's just not possible because I'm not a kid anymore. I'm a grown ass man, and and like, it's just that's not gonna happen anymore.

But I do. It's funny. I have such a love for the game of basketball that I I kind of find things that I love in every player, Like even as I look back at at players that I dislike for various reasons, right, Like not a huge fan of James Harden, Right, but like I literally am obsessed with his footwork on a step back three, and I copy it all the time. Right, literally stole my step back

three from James Harden. When I look at like Joel Embiid, who drives me crazy, Like I his outrageous confidence in bravado on the court. I really like his footwork out

of the post. I find extremely impressive. Like I find things that I like in players, even that I was watching highlights of Trey Young the other day on Twitter, just playing pick up basketball over the summer, and he hit this like he had this ridiculous like left to right cross into a hard forward step back into a right to left snatch back dribble into a pull up three and just buckled his defender. And I was like, Oh my god, that's one of the nastiest moves I've

ever seen. And it's like, that's the thing is, like, I don't like Trey Young, particularly as a player, for various reasons, but like, as a basketball fan, how can you not like some of the things that these guys do? Right? So I kind of like everybody for various reasons. But if I had to, just for fun, I put together a list my top five players under the age of thirty, in no particular order, just as a fan. Guys that

I really like. Nikole Jokic is on there. I think it's just so unbelievably impressive to be a dominant number one in the league with a league this talented like we are in a league. Remember our top fourteen. We've got Steph Giannis, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Jason Tatum, Lebron James, Jimmy Butler, Luka, Doncic, Kawhi, Leonard, Devin Booker, Shake kills Alexander Damian Lillard, like our league is freaking stacked, and Jokic is like a clear number one. I think

that is super super cool. I've talked a lot about it on the show, but his footwork is something that has always been super impressive to me. His touch. I don't think people realize how hard you have to work to be able to make push shots and floaters and hooks at damn near seventy percent. So Jokics've been a huge fan of shake Yo's. Alexander is one of my

favorite young players. The old school approach to to offense, that like hard downhill pressure on the rim mixed in with short range pull up shooting just reminds me of a lot of vintage guards. Anthony Edwards, same thing, outrageous confidence, the just like kind of vintage throwback two guard thing

he's got going on. He missed a turnaround fade away against Lithuania in the first half the other day where he did the d wade like half spin and then come back and just buckled the dude and he missed it. He shot it along on the back room and I was just like, I love this kid, Like like I just have this feeling like Anthony Edwards in his mid to late twenties is gonna be potentially the best player in the league and and be just an incredible watch.

So Anthony Edwards is up there for me. Love his confidence. Luka Doncic at four and again no particular order, but Luka donciz is the fourth guy. I uh, Luca, I think is you know again? And he's actually a good example of a guy who I love hate right because like his play style drives me crazy sometimes and he could be a whiner, but I am obsessed with Luka Doncicic's like the ability he has to sell his moves because he's not fast, and he is big and strong.

That's obviously his physical trait that he dominates games with, but he sells every single move with every part of his body. As a matter of fact, Like if you are a young ball handler, regardless of your athleticism, the guy that I would watch in terms of body language when he's making his moves is Luca because again it goes to show you you don't have to be whipping the ball all over the place to get buy people

off the dribble. All you have to do is get a defender to guess wrong, And the best way to get a defender to guess wrong is to sell a particular move and then transition into another one right. And like you'll see Luca setting up for a left to right crossover and he'll have his shoulders open to the left and his whole body is positioned towards the left, and then he'll like cut across, and like you'll see

defenders take a slide step that way. So many guys will just bring the ball out to the left while they're squared up with the defender and they'll whip it across to the right, but the body doesn't move at all, and so the defender stays square it up. And so Luca, I think, is a really fun basketball player to watch from the standpoint of skill development and kind of learning how to beat people off the dribble without an incredible quickness advantage. I've always been a fan of Luca and

then lastly Devin Booker. It's just very similar body type to me, that like six five sixty six two guard, and he takes a lot of similar shots that I like to take. And so as a basketball fan, I've always really appreciated Devin Booker because I just want to be more like him with when I play on the court, and so Devin book like, those are those are my five guys under the age of thirty that I'm just a fan of. So that's not a ranking of any sort.

It's just just basketball players that I really like and basketball players that I'll be rooting for into the future. And then honestly, like, there's a lot of really young players that I love, jayde and Ivy, I love Palapankara, big big chet Holmgren fan. I'm hearing really good things about chet Holmgren and his work ethic and his competitiveness, so I'm excited to root for him. I mean, there's so much to get excited about in the young players.

Jabari Smith Junior is another one I really like. So again, after Lebron retires, I'm kind of looking forward to that phase of my career breaking down the game of basketball, because like, I'll ditch the childhood sentimentality and just be a fan of the game, you know, for the rest of my life. And I'm looking forward to that. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting me in the show be

back tomorrow with Number three. Have three more shows this week on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then we'll head into our season previews starting on Monday. The volume