The theory was definitely valid at the time, given the way the game was played. Post-Magic and pre-Curry, no le team really had a PG that could be considered a top 10 (or even 20) player in the league. Let's see: BJ Armstrong, Sam Cassell, Avery Johnson, Derek Fisher, Speedy Claxton (The only year you could reasonably say was an exception to my PG theory is 2015, and even then Curry played like in the finals getting guarded by Dellavadva, but they were playing against a Cavs team with the 2nd and 3rd best player injured so the giant talent disparity was enough to overcome his poor play. The stars aligned for Golden State that year. No healthy OKC team to give them any kind of challenge in the West, and without Irving or Love the Cavs were maybe an even worse finals team than the 2007 Cavs were.
I’ve also never denied that there isn’t the occasional transcendent talent, team loaded with talent up and down its roster where it just so happens the PG is the most talented of the bunch, or team that is in the right place at the right time and wins in a historically weak year (in the case of the 2015 Warriors, it’s all of the above). The Warriors are perfectly constructed to prevent all of the defensive tactics that might actually stop Curry. Klaynus takes away any ability to put a bigger defender on Curry because of his size and how good he is at shooting over smaller players. The other wings Golden State has won with (Iggy, Durant, Harrison Barnes) are also all 6’6” and over which more or less forced the other team to put its PG on Curry.
Curry is also unique in that he can influence the game as a PG without needing to dominate the ball the way nearly every other elite PG does. The success of guys like Irving and Westbrook is almost inversely related to their team’s success because them having a big night means no one else was touching the ball. Curry is able to be part of an offensive scheme that emphasizes ball sharing and fluidity to get open shots.
The PG as your best player theory is still perfectly valid..
As Dok said, the reason Curry is different is due to his off-ball dominance.. he's one of the only players in league history who consistently gets doubled without even having the ball in his hands..
There will be plenty of emulators coming up, but you won't get another one like him..
So you took away his worst game in a 6 game stretch and the numbers look really good...cool. I could do the same thing in the other direction. If you take away his 37 point game 4, he averaged 23.8 points on 41% shooting.
I'll admit that saying he "played like " is an overstatement but his play wasn't the big reason they won that series, their elite defense was.
Calling Harden a "pseudo-PG" is a gimmicky way to try to argue with the PG theory, especially since there clearly is a PG on that team who's subordinate to Harden as the top option. No reasonable person would argue the Rockets are a team where the PG is its best player. One of the biggest factors behind my opinion of PGs is their size and the fact that you can't consistently rely on the shortest player on the court to close playoff games against elite defensive teams. Slapping the label of "point guard" on a wing who handled the ball a lot was something people who (for reasons I'll never really understand) got uncontrollably enraged every time my PG theory got brought up.The theory was definitely valid at the time, given the way the game was played. Post-Magic and pre-Curry, no le team really had a PG that could be considered a top 10 (or even 20) player in the league. Let's see: BJ Armstrong, Sam Cassell, Avery Johnson, Derek Fisher, Speedy Claxton (
I don't disagree that winning a championship with someone like Fisher or Avery Johnson as your starting point guard would be difficult now and that your PG does need to be an offensive weapon to a larger extent, but that doesn't invalidate my theory. It's not like my theory was "you should have an unathletic slug playing point guard if you want to win championships".
Every team other than the Warriors that's trying to build around a PG as its best player right now has obvious flaws. The rest of the Celtics can't mesh with Irving, the rest of the Thunder can't mesh with Westbrook, the Blazers are choking away huge leads because Lillard gets thrown around like a rag doll and runs out of gas by the 4th quarter (they also overachieved getting to the WCF because of lucky playoff seeding), and there aren't any other top 8 teams I can think of with a PG as the best player. While I agree that you can't have a gaping offensive liability at PG anymore, I'd say its even harder to win as a PG dominated team now than it was 10 years ago. There's such an emphasis on ball movement that an offense where a PG runs around calling for pick and rolls would get run off the court by a team like the Bucks.
Exactly, the fact such a physically un-intimidating player commands off ball double teams is transcendent and unlikely to be replicated.
If the people who like arguing against the PG theory just for the sake of it want me to change the theory from "Teams with a PG as their best player aren't built to win championships" to "You can't win with a PG as your best player unless said PG is a transcendent shooting talent who gets double teamed off-ball, but you'll still need to have a 6'7" 20+ point scorer at SG who's also a historically efficient off-ball scoring threat to make sure that larger defenders can't be switched onto said PG" then I guess I can concede that
its disingenuous to say "he played like in the finals" when he played like for 1 game out of 6 and otherwise played up to his standards.
nobody says hurr durr dirk played like in the 2011 finals because he shot 9-27 in one game and 6-19 in another.
I already said it was incorrect to say he played like . Are you just arguing now for the sake of it?
thats my MO
though tbh i didnt read past the first line, my bad
Yeah, that's basically my point. 10-20 years ago, if I were building a team, PG would probably the last position I'd be overly concerned about filling. Today, I would first try to find an athletic wing who can shoot or be developed into a shooter and then find an athletic 3 point shooting PG to complement. I think the Rockets' Achilles heel is the fact Chris Paul's game is still stuck in the early 10s, too midrange centric. So being an elite PG isn't enough, either (his game impact metrics are always solid over the regular season, top 15 in RPM). You have to be an off-the-dribble threat from 3. The Giannis+Bledsoe is probably the boilerplate duo now (Giannis is of course listed as a PF, but he plays like a wing), and if/when Giannis develops a 3 (I think for the Bucks to take it to the next level [don't see them beating GS], he's going to have to. His game will be too prone to paint packing), we could be looking at the next dominant NBA team.
"Philo'ing."thats my MO
though tbh i didnt read past the first line, my bad
I think the Rockets have the same issue Portland has, they don't have a long scoring wing. As you said, if you were building a team today, an athletic wing who can score from anywhere on the court would be the player you build around, and imo the Rockets don't have it.
Harden is only like 6'3", so they should just move him to PG full time and trade CP3 for a wing, picks, assets, whatever. The Harden/CP3 duo is flawed. I don't even know what CP3's role on that team is anymore? Harden pretty much runs the show, so CP3 is reduced to an undersized SG who can pass. Kind of like when Manu and Parker used to share the court. Manu was the PG, while Parker was basically the SG.
"Philo'ing."
This thread aged well:
CP3's contract is trade prohibitive. Nobody touching it.
If durant didnt join this thread would've gotten the naruto treatment every day for the last 3 years
This thread was started the last time your team was in the playoffs.This thread aged well:
Consider that, pendejo.
-20 points for even creating this thread to mock the great Kobe Bean Bryant.
Turned out Steph is one of the players pushing Kobe out of the Top 15 of All Time...not that he ever belonged, but good to see Today's NBA pushing out yesterday's over hype.
i dont think he's there. at his peak kobe was also a great defender. curry is a decent defender but he's not a standout, and he's not somebody that you can ever put on the other team's best player... if its a small guard klay usually takes over. thats why houston would aggressively target him (seems like they did so more last year). curry isn't an awful defender, but he doesn't have a prayer against elite players like harden. kobe would usually be up to the task when the chips were down
offensively is a different story
But like Kobe, Steph has seen other players take the Finals MVP, while he has none (yet). Kobe finally got one during ring 4. This could be ring 4 for Steph. Will he get the MVP if so?
Not coincidental you're defending a bean.
-20 points for even creating this thread to mock the great Kobe Bean Bryant.
It's really close between Bryant and Curry right now, but Curry is definitely on pace to surpass him. It doesn't even matter how good or bad he is on defense. We don't rank players by going skill-for-skill down a checklist. We compare them based on who was more dominant. Curry is more dominant than Kobe ever was.
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