I wasn't sure where to put this, so if it's in the wrong place mods, feel free to move it, but I was talking with a few people who basically feel Curry > Kobe all time, the quote is below: Now obviously blind numbers without context don't provide a whole story, just thought it was an interesting topic and wondered how we the Laker Nation felt about it?
The modern “very rarely play great defense and anyone with a decent 3 point shot should shoot a billion 3s” NBA has made comparing stats from different eras impossible. Devin Booker is a Wish.com version of Kobe and he has a 70pt game for f***s sake. The modern NBA can kiss my hairy behind; and get off my lawn.
It is much easier to play efficient basketball now then it was back then. Defenses are different, offensively the game doesn't even look the same. You have to look not only at the raw numbers but also put them in context. No disrespect to Curry though, I feel he is a historically great player; but I'd still rank Kobe in the top 10, and Curry just outside, together with, say, Hakeem. If you just look at the numbers, Wilt is the GOAT, and there's not much discussion about it.
I have a hard time rating Curry: he's not the same level of defender of Kobe for example. But if you throw away the era what makes Curry really special is that he is the only massive gunner I've seen who everyone likes to play with. His ability to be a really good PG to keep his teammates involved and rewarded for their hard work on defense and cutting while taking a ridiculously high degrees of difficulty shots is unique. Only a few guys can claim to have both ultra elite shooting combined with elite playmaking off the dribble. Bird is the only real comparison with this particular skillset? So while Durant maybe on the eye test the better player for his size, I would take Curry over him if I was building a team from scratch
I have no beef with Steph, but Kobe was different. Kobe was for all his 5 title teams the lead guard who set the table for the offense, the primary wing scorer, and maybe most importantly, the shut down wing defender. And as far as the numbers are concerned, he was under orders to defer to Shaq for the threepeat years.
The idea of this annoys me. Steph is great, an all time great, a special player, but he’s not Kobe. There’s very little defense allowed these days, where Kobe played in some series and finals where they let you get beat the hell up. Steph also regularly had playoff duds, Kobe rarely did. Also, Steph won his first ring in part because Kyrie and Love got hurt. The next season they weren’t and the Warriors lost in 7. Then they went all cowardly and added Kevin Durant and later Cousins to Curry, Klay, and Green, that was the most pumped up fake a** team of all time, and they STILL struggled with Houston, and LeBron still almost took game 1 from them in that 2018 Finals. Call me a hater if you want, but Steph has 2 legit rings, 2 phony. Give me Kobe all day every day every single time, unless it’s a 3 point shooting contest, and even then I’m not sure Kobe doesn’t practice like mad for it and still win. Really all I need to say is one word though, defense. One of them played it at an all-NBA level, one doesn’t play it.
Also I’d love to see Steph take the 05/06 Lakers roster to the playoffs and almost beat the Suns, never happen. That roster was garbage, and the ‘07 roster wasn’t much better Smush, Kobe, Odom, Kwame, Mihm Sasha, Profit, George, Walton, Cook That was essentially our entire rotation based on minutes player. We had Bynum, but he played only 46 games and 7 mins per. That’s how good Kobe was, he took that team to a 45-37 record and the 54-28 Suns to 7 games. The disrespect I’ve seen lately from kids too young to have seen him play, or people who hated him so their memories are clouded, or only remember him post achilles injury is wild. Not around to defend himself, and yet tons and tons of players still have him in their top 3 all time if not top 2, and people are saying Curry has passed him? Please.
This disrespect sh*t has been going on since the beginning of time. People disrespected Wilt, West, Goodrich, Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Shaq, Kobe, etc etc. Every generation of sports fans think that the previous generation could not keep up with their super duper athletes. It's a joke and it's pathetic. In fact I have laughed at most people on the sports web about this very subject having said "wait until it starts happening to you and the athletes you think are fantastic"!
Kobe played in a era with no spacing . His numbers can't be fairly compared to younger generations. What Curry is doing at 6'3 is INCREDIBLE though and he's the only superstar ( with Duncan) who accepted to be coached Curry is the system and the Warriors .. Once he retires , Warriors will slowly fall off like SAS currently are .
I’m with you, Weezy. I’m actually offended by this comparison. Steph is great, but this game is played on both sides of the ball. When it came to defense, Kobe was Elite. Steph in comparison, …. I could go on, but I won’t.
Kobe. Is this really a question? Curry is however the greatest shooter I've ever seen, I'll give him that.
If basketball players were only graded by how well they shoot, then Curry could be the GOAT, of his era only. He would be crushed if he played back in the 90s, by all of the hard picks and the fact that everyone was allowed to play extremely physical defense.
The only comparable debate I have would be Jordan vs. Maravich. On topic: 24 has a more rounded game.
