Steve Curry’s career can be neatly divided into four eras. Which version of Steph was the most effective and most productive?
We’re two weeks away from the Golden State Warriors winning their fourth NBA title in the past eight years. After a series of six hotly contested games, the Warriors’ experience and playmaking industry in time overcame the smaller and deeper Boston Celtics. Of course, Golden State was led by Steve Curry – one of the 10 active players named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. Curry won the first player in the finals, averaging 31.2 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists per game.
This elusive final MVP was a new addition to Curry’s biography and sparked a whole new conversation about his place among the best and greatest NBA players of all time. To me, “best” and “greatest” are not interchangeable, but the unspoken part of these conversations is that we always have the best—the first—repetitions on our mind. No one who thinks Michale Jordan is the best basketball ever thinks of 1984-1987 or the Washington Wizards Jordan.
The same is true of Steve. If the 34-year-old Curry is still advancing the ranks at all times with the Finals MVP, does that mean he’s still improving as a player? Is this the best version we’ve seen of Steph?
To try to answer this question, I’ve divided Curry’s career up to this point into four distinct sections and then arranged them in the order I think is best.
Which version of Steph Curry was the best?
4. The era of Mark Jackson and Steve Curry – 2011-2014
We start at the beginning of Steve’s career. Before the awards and prizes, there were questions about its effectiveness at the professional level. There were questions about whether Curry could recreate what he was doing at Davidson. Can he shoot and score at such a high clip with better athletes and defensive tactics? His run in the 2008 NCAA Championship surely put the NBA on the know and he was named to the draft boards to be selected No. 7 overall in 2009. But that selection didn’t come without a doubt. I’m sure the six teams that passed him would have wished they had taken the best player out of that draft, but Curry wasn’t considered the best potential goalkeeper – not to mention he deserved to be picked first.
Curry was a great Davidson player, even with the stigma of being on a mid-level major. in three seasons There, he was up 20 points per game — with 28.6 points in his freshman year. It was a slight frame and not a workout warrior who can die 400 pounds is like now. And with Davidson’s less talented teammates, he occasionally hits “Triangle and Two” defenses.
Early in his career, because of this slight frame, injuries were a problem. The main concern was his ankles and this led to him signing a Four years, upward extension 44 million in 2013. It proved to be one of the most valuable deals in NBA history, as the 2013-14 season was the first of six consecutive All-Star seasons. Curry fortified his body and was on his way to becoming the historically great player we know today.
3. Current Steph Curry – 2019 to date
Here is where the discussion begins. There’s no doubt that this was Steph’s most solo playoff round due to the circumstances. With Clay recovering from two years from a catastrophic injury and questions about the Warriors’ offensive firepower, Curry put the team on its back. This was especially true in the Finals, where he was the only person in the Warriors who was a constant threat across the land. He was great in the finals, but is this Curry’s best look ever?
Steve’s era also saw his worst regular season of his career (2020) and another one where the Warriors performed poorly (2021). Steve sure has been injured during a lot of this period, but the injuries were detrimental in the best/greatest of these discussions ever. While 2019 featured in the World Cup Finals, and this year saw him smash the all-time 3-second record and finish off the season with the title, the recovery arc had a lot of struggles even when he was healthy. By Carrey’s own admission, he went through the worst shooting slump of his career. In January, Stephen fired 38 percent from the field and 32 percent from 3 — the worst of his career, according to ESPN’s Kevin Bilton. Curry work through it And see the result of the year.
2. The Durant era of Steve Curry – 2017-2019
Here is where the absurd notion that Steph Curry doesn’t play well in the Finals even before this last season broke down. In the NBA Finals with Kevin Durant as his teammate, Curry averaged 26.8 points, 9.4 assists, and 8.0 rebounds in five games in the 2017 NBA Finals, 27.5 points, 6.8 assists, and 6.0 rebounds in four games in 2018 (via StatMuse). It can reasonably be concluded that Steph Curry did not struggle in these Finals and did not take a back seat to Kevin Durant as they played together, despite the consensus and Finals MVP hardware indicating that Durant is the best player on the team.
Carrie is no one’s friend. His abilities to play alongside Durant have not diminished. Views describing him as a system player are refuted by the simple fact that the system does not work with a nuclear blast if Curry himself is unable to be a supernova. It’s efficiency combined with size from Curry that has allowed them to play the most unique brand of basketball in the NBA. Even the slightest drop in efficiency moves warriors from a dynasty to a “really good team”. This drop is the reason they were not considered contenders for the championship throughout the playoffs.
This iteration of Curry may be right next to a colleague the whole time. But anyone who thinks Curry has been overshadowed doesn’t pay attention to the producer on the court and is drawn to the drama that has surrounded this team.
1. MVP Steve Curry – 2014-2016
It’s not just based on two MVP awards, including the unanimous MVP in 2016. It’s about what the summit really looks like. In 2016, Curry hit 3,400+ seconds, breaking his own NBA record in a single season. To put that into perspective, he averaged five times in a 3s — Steph entered any circuit with a 15-point guarantee in the books. It’s similar to James Harden’s free-throw numbers that allowed him to get 10 points – but Steve didn’t have to put his body at risk like Harden did.
As mentioned before, Steve is a system player who created his own system. This Steve era was the first release of it. It’s been the best Carey has ever looked at over many years, and her MVP awards—including winning them unanimously in 2016—confirm that.
In the end, whichever version of Steph we think is the best will be what is used in these seemingly endless discussions about rating our all-time greats. But to think that a great player like Steve has always been great Steve has much to prove that in order to raise his profile in the NBA Pantheon is nonsense. Estimate his career arc total without feeling the need to put a label and rank on it and the discussions about this game will improve dramatically
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