Thomas is still a top 3 PG of all time in my book, but he is delusional to say the Pistons are the most influential team of all time..
The two guys I've who just seemed to completely confound NBA defenses in the sense that they had to do things that they never really did before or after was was Shaq the first few years with Jackson before he got fat and Steph. Wilt I'm sure did this as well but I never got to watch him. This is similar in how NFL teams had to invent the Cover 2 defense to counter Randy Moss. Moss may not have been the greatest receiver ever but he totally morphed how NFL defenses had to counter.
I didn't see enough of Stockton or (any of) Robertson, but of those others, I think Kidd is definitely the best basketball player in terms of overall skills. But I don't think any of them got more out of their teammates than Nash did. He just couldn't play a lick of D. From what I vaguely recall of Stockton, he had the offense of Nash and was a much, much better defender. Closer to Kidd on that side of the court.
Never watched Oscar but Steph is better then the rest except Magic. He's just at another level in terms of offensive impact
I'm not sure it's at another level. I mean, it's probably greater, but Nash's impact on offense was massive, too. Nash's shooting numbers are very close to Steph's: 49-43-90 vs. 48-43-91. Nash's offensive rating is 118 in his career, vs. Steph's 118. Nash's highest was 124. Steph's is 125. Steph just does it with more shooting. Crazy fact: Nash never had a USG% over 24.4. His career % was 21.0 - just another guy on the court. Curry's hasn't been under 24.4 since 2011/12. He's not a massive USG guy, but he's at 28.8 in his career, basically 4 Curries per 3 Nashes (lol). I think Nash was able to get more out of his teammates without having to be as dominant with the ball as Curry is. Curry is the best volume sniper we've ever seen though.
I strongly disagree with the conclusion of the last 2 sentences: when you're ridiculously as efficient as Curry you want the player to have a higher usage rate. Curry still being a 2 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. Volume plus efficiency is very hard to do but that what makes Steph special (he's not only the best shooter of all time, he's a very good ballhandler and finisher as well. I think you start seeing this more clearly with boxed +.- and win shares which fall squarely in Curry's favor. On a side note, I hate how Amare is just lost in this conversation. At his peak, he had a ridiculously fast first step (maybe Worthy was the only guy his size who was quicker) which made the PnR with Nash work. It's not like he didn't play with another great big in Dirk where his numbers weren't as high.
Is there a way to quantify the impact of having to guard curry at distances that just don’t apply to other players? That has to have a negative impact on the defense and a positive one on the offense, id guess.
Oh. I didn’t say that. Maybe I wasn’t clear. I think curry might make an overall larger impact. That’s what I began my post with. He’s a relatively much higher use player. Nash didn’t have to use as many possessions to make his impact. I agree that I want curry to play like he does. I don’t see a disagreement.
I don’t know. I guess you could look at open looks from other guys, how the player guarding Curry does on offense. 82games used to track that.
Curry could fly because Nash ran first. Nash was the first real guard to play a successful high efficiency outside in game. If you didn’t guard up on him against the shot, he’d punish you and that opened up the rest of his game. In his best 3pt shooting season he shot 4.7 attempts on 47%. So it doesn’t surprise me that Nash has commented that if it was accepted and he had the same green light as Curry he’d take twice as many shots as he did. He feels he didn’t put enough emphasis on scoring.
As for Kobe vs Curry. It’s much closer than we want to admit, they’re both all time greats. Kobe is a better defender and Curry is a better offensive player. When I compare MJ to Kobe, I always say MJ was the better player but Kobe had the higher peak. Steph is the only offensive player I can compare to Kobe’s explosive scoring. And that’s down to the power of the 3 ball . I do wonder what would have happen if the three ball had the same popularity during MJ or Kobe’s time.
Curry is number three in my book because of his other worldly shooting. Stockton was better than Nash because he was great(and dirty) on defense. His mid range game was also better, but Nash gets the nod in the passing department. Stockton to Malone was extremely difficult to guard and I’m still surprised that they only made the Finals once.
I don’t agree that it’s close. Kobe’s offensive game contained many more weapons than Steph’s does. We witnessed things that even Jordan never did. You also have to take into consideration the defensive side of the ball. Kobe was elite. Steph has improved, but there is a Grand Canyon sized chasm between the two in this category.
Kobe is probably 5-10 and Steph is 10-15. That’s close. Kobe takes the edge because of his two way potential obviously. And you’re spot on, Kobe when he got hot was unbelievable. But Steph gets molten hot too and he starts bombing 3’s from a few inside half court. That’s game breaking stuff right there.
