Which Steph Curry was better: 2015 or 2022? | Golden State Warriors

Which Steph Curry was better: 2015 or 2022? | Golden State Warriors

What’s up, guys? Thanks as always for supporting the show. It would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Also, make sure you follow us all over social media so you don’t miss any of our content or show announcements. How do you balance/v valueue experience and youth? Experience may help players in big games, but it’s more detailed and hard to tell. Youth can youth can help have better sustainability, more minutes, and more net contribution in a long season, maybe a series or a game, too. For example, would you rather have 2015 Curry or 2020 Curry? Thank you. So, this is where I’ve always talked about this concept of like young players struggling to see what works and replicate it and struggling to see what doesn’t work and trim that fat. Young players tend to have a higher ceiling. Their athletic traits give them the ability when their game is clicking to reach a level that the older versions of themselves don’t reach. If I had to simplify or synthesize my opinion that I favor veterans over young talent down to one singular concept, here’s what I would say. When you get into big basketball moments, it actually becomes more about not making mistakes than it comes down to your supreme gift guiding you to an individual possession of greatness. Championship basketball teams don’t make mistakes relative to their peers generally speaking because everyone gets tired and everyone gets worn down by the physicality and everyone struggles from the game planning and the just overall intensity and stakes and pressure and and fear and everything that gets wrapped up into those moments. It really becomes about can you keep your floor high enough to survive. Can you hang on to the rope longer than your opponent? That’s how you win big basketball games. They tend to end at super low low scores. Any like game sevens, big game sixes, clutch situations, the offensive ratings all tank and it tends to come down to who made fewer mistakes. Take 2015 Curry versus 2022 Curry. Do you think 2022 Curry is going to throw a behind the back pass to Klay Thompson in the corner like he did in the 2016 finals when he threw the ball out of bounds? No. That was a young version of Curry that was more mistakrone. 2022 Curry may not quite have had the crazy high highs as a guy like 2015 Curry, but 2022 Curry was a rockolid player who did not make mistakes and allowed a team to hang on to the rope longer than his peers. And guess what? The Celtics, they decomposed and made mistakes. Their young players fell apart and made mistakes. Remember when Tatum and Brown like straight up couldn’t get the ball across half court without turning the ball over numerous stretches during that playoff run that especially uh in years surrounding that with like the Miami Heat when they would pick them up full court like these young Celtics were mistakrone. They didn’t reach their ceiling in that finals. It’s not like the Warriors reached some crazy high level. They hung on to the rope and play disciplined mistakefree basketball. That is why I lean towards vets in big spots. They tend to be less prone to the mistakes that can cost you basketball games. And yes, I do believe that 2022 Curry or really that whole phase from the end of the 2021 regular season to the 2022 finals to be the best version of Steph Curry that I ever watched. Next question. Can you give me a single reason why my friend might have any argument that Dame’s full body of talent should be ranked higher than Steph’s? Is there any semblance of an argument that Steph would have had largely the same career that Dame did if he were to have been the one in Portland in place of Dame? This is one of the biggest things that I fundamentally disagree with is this this take that Dame is kind of in the same group as a guy like Steph. I actually do think that Dame is in the same territory as Steph as an onball player, only as an onball player. Dame was a ridiculous off the dribble pullup three-point shooter who brought real downhill burst and he was a very good passer out of those high ball screens. But there were two things that Steph did that completely separated him from Dame. Like just completely put him in an entirely different tier. meaning like I have Steph as one of the 10 best basketball players ever and Dame’s not even close to that when you start to evaluate a guy and it’s a reason why if you would have switched them I would actually have viewed the Portland Trailblazers probably as a team that would have accomplished more than the Golden State Warriors. The simple reason why those two things, one, the commitment to defense. Steph was bigger and stronger than Dame, a few inches taller, a lot more in terms of the the amount of muscle that he brought to the table. And Steph committed to becoming a useful defender. Steph did the job. He was never great. He was always the target, but he always did the job within the scheme and competed well enough that he could still have an elite defense with him on the floor. That was something that Dame was never able to accomplish. Dame just didn’t quite have the same physical tools and he never put in the requisite amount of work. Dame was literally one of the worst defensive guards I watched in this era. And then the second piece of it, and this is something that Dame just left meat on the bone because it has nothing to do with physical tools, so to speak. Steph embraced offball movement. Steph is one of the best offensive engines in the NBA. It’s a big reason why he ranks so high on the list this year. And one of the main reasons why is because when he just runs around in circles with his offball movement, he attracts so much attention that it generates the advantages. The advantages that grease the wheels for any NBA offense. Steph running off a screen. Two guys run with him. They leave a guy open. It generates advantages. Steph comes off a high ball screen, passes it over top to the guy rolling in the fouron-ree. It generates advantages. Steph has an offensive engine element to him that a guy like Damen Lillard never had. Those two things completely separated Steph from Dame, even though Dame was close in terms of an onball talent to what Steph Curry did. And then last question, I’m surprised that you didn’t even consider Chad Homegrren as a top 25 player for next season. He was arguably the Thunder’s best player before he got injured last year. Yes, his offense is infuriating to watch sometimes, but he didn’t get a lot of time to gel with the team once he came back. I think that’ll improve dramatically next season when he plays a full season and has more reps playing with Shay and JDub. He’s also a top two rim protector and one of the best defenders in the league in my opinion. It’s hard to see how he doesn’t have top 25 level impact. So, the thing with Chad is I don’t think he really brings other than vertical spacing. I don’t think he brings really any reliable offensive trade at this point. I don’t view him as a highle passer. He had more turnovers than assists in this postseason run. I think that he struggles as a post defender. He’s a little too thin. He can get pushed around. I think on the uh offensive end of the floor, he can get pushed around a little bit on the glass. Uh uh excuse me, on the defenseive end of the floor, he can get pushed around a little bit on the glass. On the offensive end of the floor, he can’t knock down spot-up jump shots. He’s not a good decision maker driving closeouts. It’s really just like, can he catch and finish wide open dunks around the basket? Yes, he can. But everything else, he’s a little bit inefficient and a little bit too prone to mistakes. When you look at the guys that are above him on this list, they bring like real offensive utility. Bam, as frustrating as a player as he can be, he brings real offensive utility, and I just think Bam’s a flatout better defensive player than Chad Homegrren. You look at a guy like um Evan Mobley, I think Chad’s a better defender than Evolley, but Evan Mobley is a substantially better offensive player right now than Chad Homegrren is. He’s a reliable catch-and shoot guy and a guy who can run some action. To me, Chad will absolutely be very high on this list one day. I believe in him as an offensive talent. I think he’ll figure all of this stuff out, but in this particular phase of his career, he’s just way too limited offensively and has a couple of big weaknesses on defense that I think pre prevent him from getting higher on this list.

Jason discusses youth vs. experience specifically around the premise of Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry and his seasons in 2015 compared to 2022 when the Dubs won the NBA title.

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