San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
REGARDLESS OF AI LIST, CURRY BELONGS IN TOP 10
Warriors guard has already earned his spot among the NBA’s greatest legends
You’ve probably seen the poll and the list, but the interesting thing about an AIgenerated list of the NBA’s 10 best players all-time is that it doesn’t pretend to be a “team,” with specific positions. It just designates the most historically great NBA players, period. For me, that makes it absolutely necessary that Stephen Curry be included.
I’ve been enchanted by Curry, just like the rest of us, since the Golden State Warriors’ championship breakthrough of 2015 in Cleveland. But my all-time backcourt has long pegged Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan — the perfect point guard-shooting guard combination. I’m old enough to have seen a lot of Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, during their prime years, at the L.A. Sports Arena in the 1960s. So those were my backups, with no thought required.
As we witness Curry now, still an unstoppable force at 35 with plans to play several more years, it’s time for a revision. He needs to be on this list. Let’s just say up front: All 10 of those players belong. The notion of “kick him off ” seems rude and just plain wrong. But it must be done if the point is to wind up with 10.
For starters, in any top 10, there is no touching Magic and Michael, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kareem AbdulJabbar, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Larry Bird. Just on principle, you don’t slide Curry in ahead of any of those players, no matter how much you love him.
That leaves two slots — and two more centers, as it turns out, in Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal.
Duncan has been widely called the greatest power forward in history, but as San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich often said, he was effectively a center. That’s how he operated, and he was that brand of threat to the opposition.
How many centers do you need, even if the AI’s criteria disregard positions?
At some point in these arguments, emotion has to come into play. I was deeply impressed but never moved by Duncan’s performances, and to me, Curry storms ahead of him on this list. In terms of entertainment value — which absolutely has to count — this is like comparing a stately bass player to a delightfully animated orchestra conductor.
It’s a slightly different story with Shaq. I saw him in person during one of his early seasons in Orlando, and he was shockingly dominant. I’d never seen an NBA big man move like that, not with that type of muscle yet astounding speed. Wilt definitely had those qualities, but he was not
terribly fun to watch. Shaq was a revelation, a young man coming to destroy, and there was a wickedly sharp wit to his demeanor.
Later in his career, as he got a little too big, feuded with Bryant and couldn’t hit a free throw to save his life, I soured on Shaq. He’s an all-time great, for certain, but no amount of AI’s “advanced metrics and historical records, based on pure data and logic” make him a better selection than Curry.
Here’s a question for every fan with a sense of NBA history: After Curry poured in 50 points to almost personally orchestrate the Warriors’ Game 7 victory in Sacramento, did you ask yourself: Is this the greatest point guard of all time? If so, or if he even approaches
Magic Johnson’s legacy, that makes him worthy of any top-10 list.
Magic ran a fast break like no other, and he was wildly entertaining, not to mention a born winner. Does he get you 50 points in a victorious Game 7 on the road when the rest of his teammates have gone cold? Does any point guard among the all-time greats?
The technically magnificent Robertson was primarily a mid-range shooter, and West, though technically listed at the point for a number of years, was essentially a 2guard of the highest order (and the greatest clutch shooter of all time, bar none.) He remains a backup guard on my personal all-time team, but Curry moves ahead of Robertson.
Now let’s get past the speculation and remember:
• Curry is one of the very few players who actually changed how the game is played, joining (at the very least) Bob Cousy, Russell and Elgin Baylor. A telling bit of evidence: In the 2015-16 season, after the Warriors’ first title of the Curry era, there were six teams taking at least a third of their shots from 3-point range. By the 2020-21 season, 28 of the 30 teams were doing so. Everyone wants to be Curry, and nobody is.
Curry has been the heart of a dynasty for nine seasons and counting, and he doesn’t have much company there. Magic and Bird squared off for most of the ’80s. Duncan won his five titles over a 16year span. Michael Jordan reeled off six straight championships (with a two-year retirement in between). Boston’s John Havlicek won two titles with Dave Cowens and six with Russell, whose mindblowing record — 11 in 13 years — rests on a higher floor.
• Best pure shooter of all time? Sure, and we’ve heard that for years. But the best highlight reels reveal a shotmaker,
scoring on ridiculously difficult floaters and eitherhand drives from every conceivable angle. A man launching 30-footers that feel so good to him, he actually turns his back on the result and heads downcourt in brazen selfsatisfaction, perhaps nodding or gesturing to someone in the crowd. A man who actually likes to fall to the floor, as gracefully as possible, as he guides a shot through heavy traffic. What a show!
• It’s quite common to see NBA stars going through the motions on defense, or standing around the perimeter in an offensive set, welcoming the chance to get a breather. To them, Curry is from some other planet.
“It’s funny, when you’re playing against other teams, the first thing they say is, ‘This dude never stops moving,’ ” Draymond Green said. “It’s pretty interesting. No one else plays like that.”
• Each season reveals more of Curry as a leader, from the tales of his locker-room influence to his actions on the court. Green admitted being emotionally rattled in the wake of the punch he threw at Jordan Poole in training camp, making it clear that he had a long road back to full acceptance from the club.
Noted at the time but worth repeating: During a late-November game in Minneapolis, Green drew an absurdly dumb technical for cheering on his teammates. Curry immediately leaped off the bench and made a clownish, wildly gesturing spectacle of himself, just to intentionally get a technical of his own. The message: solidarity in a crisis.
“For Steph to show his brother his back like that,” longtime NBA writer Marc Spears said, “that’s something they’re gonna talk about 20 years from now.”