Is Stephen Curry the Greatest Point Guard of All-Time?
Stephen Curry's recent declaration that he is the greatest point guard of all-time provides an excellent opportunity to combine a history lesson with a discussion about how to evaluate and rank basketball players. When ranking athletes and teams, there has always been a lamentable tendency to live in the moment and forget about the past, and this tendency seems to have become more pronounced with the proliferation of social media; social media users often drive many public conversations/debates, and social media users tend to be young people who may not know or care about things that happened before they were born. Also, social media platforms encourage brevity at the cost of depth and complexity, which leads to overly simplistic, binary debates such as "Is Michael Jordan or LeBron James the GOAT?" That question ignores even the possibility that the greatest player of all-time might be neither of those players.
Before determining whether or not Curry is the greatest point guard of all-time, it is worth examining if he even is a point guard! Historically, a point guard is a team's primary ballhandler and playmaker. There have been pass-first point guards and there have been scoring point guards, but it is rare that a point guard is neither the primary ballhandler nor the primary playmaker; an obvious exception would be the nominal point guards for the Chicago Bulls when the team won six championships during an eight year span in the 1990s: B.J. Armstrong, John Paxson, Steve Kerr, and Ron Harper may have been listed in the boxscore as the point guards playing alongside shooting guard Michael Jordan at various times, but Scottie Pippen--a point forward--ran the offense while Jordan served as the secondary playmaker. Armstrong, Paxson, and Kerr were spot up shooters, while Harper was a slasher and (at that stage of his career) a defensive specialist.
Curry has not led the Warriors in assists since the 2015 season; Draymond Green has been the Warriors' primary playmaker since that time, while Curry has been most lethal off of the ball. Curry is the team's secondary playmaker, and many of his assists happen after he catches the ball, is trapped, and then passes to an open teammate. In contrast, point guards typically bring the ball up the court, run the offense, and create assist opportunities from their initial action, not after the initial action has already been run.
Curry plays like a shooting guard who has excellent passing skills, and in that regard he is more similar to Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant than he is to Magic Johnson. However, comparing Curry to Jordan or Bryant is not a conversation that would generate much traction on social media, because almost all fans would reflexively take Jordan over Curry, and I suspect that most fans--the sensible ones who understand the importance of size and the value of playing at a high level at both ends of the court--would take Bryant over Curry.
However, Curry is the size of a typical point guard (6-3), he scores more than most of the greatest point guards of all-time, and he has won more championships than most of the greatest point guards of all-time, so framing the conversation as a Curry versus Magic Johnson question--which is what Curry did, and how the conversation has then continued on social media--deftly avoids pitting Curry versus Jordan or Bryant.
For the sake of this discussion, we will accept the premise that Curry is a point guard instead of focusing on the reality that Green is the Warriors' point forward. How should a relatively small sharpshooter who spends a lot of time playing off of the ball be compared with a 6-9 player who was always his team's primary ballhandler and playmaker?
In Part I of my Pantheon series, I mentioned the importance of both high peak value and durability. The greatest players perform at a very high level for a sustained period of time. When evaluating players, their skill set strengths and weaknesses should be assessed as well. A comprehensive, objective evaluation encompasses much more than "ring counting" or sound bites or subjective impressions.
Magic Johnson led the NBA in assists four times (1983-84, 1986-87), he retired as the all-time regular season assists leader (he now ranks seventh with 10,141), and he is still the all-time regular season leader in assists per game (11.2 apg). He tops playoff career leaders in both total assists (2346) and assists per game (12.3 apg). Johnson led the NBA in free throw percentage in 1989 (.911), and he shot at least .843 from the free throw line in each of his final seven full seasons. Johnson is not known for his defense, but he led the league in steals in 1981 and 1982 and he was an excellent defensive rebounder, a skill that fueled the L.A. Lakers' fast break attack because he could just get the ball off of the boards and barrel down court.
Despite playing with several potent scorers--including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who held the regular season career scoring record from 1984-2023--Johnson averaged 19.5 ppg during his career while shooting .520 from the field. Johnson won three regular season MVPs (1987, 1989-90), and three Finals MVPs (1980, 1982, 1987) while playing on five championship teams (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987-88). Johnson's Lakers were the first NBA team to win back to back titles since the 1969 Boston Celtics. Johnson finished in the top three in regular season MVP voting for nine straight seasons (1983-91), and he made the All-NBA First Team in each of those nine seasons as well.
His numbers and accomplishments speak volumes, but it is important to dig into specifics to understand the context. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Johnson competed for MVPs with his teammate/six-time MVP Abdul-Jabbar, three-time MVP Moses Malone, three-time MVP Larry Bird, four-time MVP Julius Erving, and five-time MVP Michael Jordan; to win championships, Johnson's Lakers beat Erving's 76ers, Bird's Celtics, and Isiah Thomas' great Detroit teams that later won back to back titles.
Johnson was great from day one, and--as indicated above regarding MVP voting and All-NBA First Team selections--he remained dominant for a decade. Abdul-Jabbar only won one of his six NBA titles prior to playing with Johnson. In the 1980 NBA Finals, Abdul-Jabbar averaged 33.4 ppg, 13.6 rpg, and 4.6 bpg as the Lakers took a 3-2 series lead over Erving's 76ers, but Abdul-Jabbar severely sprained his ankle near the end of game five and was unable to play in game six. With Abdul-Jabbar out of the lineup, rookie Johnson produced 42 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists, three steals, and a blocked shot while shooting 14-23 from the field and 14-14 from the free throw line in a 123-107 Lakers win. After that monumental performance, Johnson explained what position he played: "C-F-G Rover." As John Papanek put it in Sports Illustrated, a "rookie three years out of high school played one of the greatest games in NBA playoff history at all five positions—center, point guard, shooting guard, small forward and power forward."
Few players in pro basketball history could legitimately play all five positions. During his 16 year pro career, Julius Erving made the All-Star team at both forward and guard, and when he was a young player he utilized his jumping ability and superior rebounding skills to play spot minutes at center, but Erving did not have the necessary height or weight to play extended minutes at center. LeBron James can play all five positions. Johnson is the only player who not only played extended minutes at all five positions when the stakes were highest, but he did so in the same NBA Finals game!
After veteran journalist Fred Kerber selected his 12 member all-time NBA team in 2016, I wrote an article with comments about each player who he selected. Here are my observations about Johnson (this was before LeBron James won his fourth championship):
I think that Johnson, more than any player in pro basketball history, could be teamed up with any four decent players and turn that quintet into a very competitive team. That does not necessarily mean that Johnson was the greatest player ever--he was not as good defensively as Jordan or Russell or several other Pantheon members--but it puts him in a special, hard to define category. Young fans may believe that LeBron James has that quality but what I see from James is a mixed bag: he has won three championships but he has also left several championships on the table because of inexplicably passive play. Johnson never left any championships on the table; he lost to all-time great players/teams in their primes (the Malone/Erving Sixers, Bird's Celtics, the Bad Boys Pistons, the Jordan/Pippen Bulls). There is no footage of the 1980s equivalent of Jason Terry outdueling Johnson in the fourth quarter of key NBA Finals games.
Back to the point about Johnson's incredible versatility as a teammate. Russell needed a point guard and someone to be a scoring threat. Jordan needed Pippen (and never advanced past the first round of the playoffs without him). You can go down the line and most of the great players needed a certain kind of accompanying star and/or supporting cast to maximize their greatness--but Johnson legitimately could play all five positions and he exuded a team-first ethos that smoothed over any potential ego conflicts (Abdul-Jabbar was hardly a barrel of laughs to play with for most of his career and it was amazing to see the joy that radiated from him after he had played with Johnson for a little while). Johnson won a championship while paired with point guard Norm Nixon in the backcourt and then he won championships paired with shooting guard Byron Scott. Johnson won championships with Abdul-Jabbar as the main post up scoring threat and then he won championships as a post up scoring threat when Abdul-Jabbar had to accept a lesser role due to his age/declining skills. Johnson made it to the Finals with an aging James Worthy, a young Vlade Divac, journeyman Sam Perkins and not much else in 1991--and it took the combined efforts of Jordan/Pippen in their primes to prevent Johnson from winning a sixth title.
I think that the sudden, shocking end to Johnson's career combined with Jordan's immediate meteoric rise has actually resulted in Johnson being somewhat underrated by today's commentators.
Johnson was never a defensive stopper, but for some reason his defense has gotten worse as time passes--at least in the popular imagination. It is important to remember that Johnson was not only an excellent defensive rebounder, but--particularly as a young player--he played the passing lanes very well. His rebounds and steals often became fast break points for the Lakers. Also, he did not shy away from tough defensive assignments, and Coach Pat Riley did not hesitate to give Johnson such assignments. To cite just one example, Riley had Johnson guard Erving at times during the 1982 Finals. Riley explained, "Magic on Doc seemed like an ideal matchup to me. Dr. J is a great offensive rebounder. He'd hurt us real bad. Defensive rebounding is Magic's strength. So we put him in the position we wanted him to be in."
Curry is a 6-3 player who opposing teams "hunt" on defense; Johnson was a 6-9 all-around talent who could effectively guard even Pantheon level players, at least for stretches. That contrast brings us to the crux of why Johnson is a greater point guard (and greater player) than Curry: Johnson's size enabled him to do things--including rebound, defend, and be a post up scoring threat--that Curry just cannot do, and Johnson was better than Curry in every skill set area except for shooting. Johnson passed better, rebounded better, defended better, and handled the ball better.
Curry's accolades include two regular season MVPs (2015-16), one Finals MVP (2022), two scoring titles (2016, 2021), and four free throw percentage titles (2011, 2014-15, 2018). Curry is the career leader in regular season free throw percentage (.909). He has led the league in three point field goals made seven times (2013-17, 2021-22) and his career regular season three point field goal percentage (.428) ranks 12th all-time, but he has never led the league in three point field goal percentage. Curry led the NBA in steals in 2016.
Because Curry won back to back regular season MVPs, it is easy to forget that he has not consistently played at an MVP level throughout his career: he finished in the top five in MVP voting just two other times, and he won one Finals MVP during the Warriors' four championship seasons. Curry has earned just three All-NBA First Team selections. Abdul-Jabbar, Bird, Erving, Jordan, and Moses Malone all performed at a high level in the 1980s, but Johnson was the best player of that decade; Curry has not even been demonstrably the best player in a given five year stretch, let alone the best player for a decade.
One unfortunate aspect of comparisons is that it inevitably sounds like one player is being bashed or diminished. That is why I did not rank the players in my Pantheon and instead chose to highlight why each one could be ranked as the greatest player of all-time. However, sometimes player comparisons are unavoidable and important, particularly when a retired great player is given short shrift by people who are too young to have seen him play and unwilling to do the research to discover the truth.
A strong case can be made that Magic Johnson is the greatest point guard of all-time, but the evidence just does not support ranking Curry as the greatest point guard of all-time. I respect Curry's greatness, and after his 50 point game seven performance versus Sacramento in last year's playoffs I acknowledged that in the past I may have underrated him, but I do not consider him to be a point guard, and even if I considered him to be a point guard I would not rank him ahead of Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson, or Jerry West. Robertson and West were big-time scorers like Curry, but they also served as the primary ballhandler and playmaker on their respective teams, and they were better than Curry as rebounders and defenders.
Labels: Jerry West, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson, Pantheon series, Stephen Curry
posted by David Friedman @ 10:00 PM
