The Case for Stephen Curry as the Greatest Point Guard of All Time

Stephen Curry has changed the position entirely. But in altering expectations for a PG, has he done enough to be the best ever?

Stephen Curry revolutionized the modern game of basketball forever. It’s not even up for debate anymore, right?

Everyone knows how Golden State’s golden boy altered the fabric of the league itself by showing just how efficient long-range shooting can be.

He has the once-in-a-generation ability to drain mind-bending triples from anywhere on the court. The way his team has found such massive success with their style of play destroyed positional boundaries that have existed ever since the league began.

But what gets lost in the shuffle is just how singularly great Stephen Curry actually is. Despite him crafting the very constitution for positionless basketball himself, at the end of the day we still consider him to be a point guard.

We get so caught up in the fact that Steph changed the way a team’s lead guard can play, that we fail to realize that he quite possibly has a case for the best to ever play it.

I’m going to be making my case for Stephen Curry as the greatest point guard in NBA history.

I feel as though people don’t even consider it because he’s different; which has basically been the theme of Steph’s entire career.

We get so caught up in the fact that Steph changed the way a team’s lead guard can play, that we fail to realize that he quite possibly has a case for the best to ever play it.

He’s the kid in your math class who solved the calculus problem with a unique solution that even the professors didn’t understand at first. Other all-time students may have solved it before him, or also got pretty high scores using the formulas written in the textbook.

But not only did Steph find an outside-the-box solution on the test, he had the highest test scores in the class.

Let’s start with what we already know about Steph before we get to what we don’t — his shooting.

A Closer Look at Steph’s Shooting

Stephen Curry is a career 43.5% three point shooter. That ranks as 6th in the all-time history of the league.

But when you look at a player like Steve Kerr, who leads NBA history in outside shooting at 45.4%, he only shot 1.8 threes per game. I guess every three he had ever taken in his career was shown on The Last Dance.

The low volume goes for #3 Hubert Davis and #5 Drazen Petrovic as well, both shooting just about two threes per contest.

Can you even imagine the most efficient shooters in NBA history taking just two threes a game? Definitely not, and that’s all because of Steph.

But even against his modern day peers, we can’t properly compare him. Both Duncan Robinson and his brother Seth rank higher than him on the all-time list, but the way they get those threes could not be any more different.

In the ‘15-’16 season, Seth Curry was a spot up shooter 27% of the time. Steph on the other hand spotted up just 9.1% of the time.

But what about a year later, with another dominant scorer in KD taking the ball a lot more? He went all the way up to 11.2% versus Seth’s 25.4%.

Seth also doesn’t even come close to Steph’s volume of 8.2 three point attempts for his career. Robinson is actually taking 8.4 threes per game this season, but guess how often he just spots up? 33.3%, a third of the time.

Stephen Curry is the only one in the top 10 all-time who isn’t a specialist spot up guy. The other comparable all-time shooters are so far behind that I’m kind of embarrassed for them. Ray Allen is at 47th place on the list at 40% for his career, while Reggie Miller is even lower at 61st with his 39.5%.

Not only did they not even sniff Steph’s efficiency, but they also relied on screen curls and off-ball movement to get free. They needed someone else to pass them the ball, while Steph did it all by himself most of the time.

People don’t even give Steph enough credit for his shooting — the one main skill he’s known for. There’s nobody in the history of the league who could take threes with such reckless abandon but fully justify it by making them so efficiently.

Yes, everyone already calls him the greatest shooter of all-time. But we don’t acknowledge by just how much because we’ve gotten so used to Steph’s shooting so quickly.

He’s not just the best shooter of all-time. He’s on another planet entirely.

Steph’s Much More than Just a Shooter

Stephen Curry: Elite Finisher

The very fact that Steph is such an amazing shooter blinds people from seeing just how great of an overall player he truly is.

If you had to pick one current player to get a bucket at the rim on a dribble drive, who would you pick? You can’t go wrong with Giannis or LeBron, right? Kevin Durant is also a good option when he’s healthy.

How far down the list would you fall, with bigger players like Russell Westbrook, James Harden, or Kawhi Leonard on the board, before you choose Steph on the drive? A piece on Stephen Curry by The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor helped me make the argument for Steph on the bounce.

In the last 6 seasons since they’ve tracked play-type specific scoring, Curry’s ‘17-’18 season ranks in the top-5 in single-season points per possession on drives to the rim.

Curry’s 1.28 PPP places him fifth behind just the following players:

Basically, it’s Steph and four guys who look like they could bench press Steph.

It wasn’t just a fluke season either. For Curry’s career, he scores 1.2 points per drive to the rim, which ranks near the top of the league — for all players, not just guards.

Even during the first year of tracking in 2013, when Steph didn’t have the gravity-pulling reputation as a shooter yet, he already scored 1.1 PPP on drives. Guess how many times most of his modern day point guard peers have even done that? Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Mike Conley, and Kemba Walker have done it zero times since that season.

Curry is just one of five players — along with Kevin Durant, LeBron James, James Harden, and Kawhi Leonard — who have even recorded 1.2 points per drive more than once since 2013.

Steph’s just as potent an at-the-rim scorer as the best in the league, guys who are routinely bigger and stronger than he is by a mile.

But we never give him credit for it just because everyone would rather see him shoot threes. The game plan for Steph has always been to run him off the line, but that really doesn’t work as well as people expect.

Stephen Curry: Underrated Passer

Curry is also a better passer than people realize. His career mark of 6.6 assists per game doesn’t look all that impressive on paper. But that actually ranks him as the 37th highest career average of all-time. The only current players of note ahead of him are LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Russell Westbrook.

People might say that it’s partly because he’s had such great teammates, so of course he’ll get a lot of assists passing to Klay and KD. But on the contrary, the talent around him has neutered his assist totals significantly.

Ever since Draymond Green peaked in 2015, he’s averaged about seven assists per game. Durant as a member of the Golden State Warriors averaged 5.5 assists per game. If Steph Curry dominated possessions as the primary distributor, how many assists do you think he would get then?

We don’t even have to imagine it because he did just that in the ‘13-’14 season. During this season, the Warriors had a winning record with Curry firmly at the helm. Steph’s assist total then was at a career-high 8.5 per contest and there seemed no indication of him slowing down.

But his ball-handling duties took a step back for Draymond Green the following season. Then again for Kevin Durant two years later.

Stephen Curry was more than willing to give up his own numbers and accolades to allow his other star teammates to thrive.

Steph’s Historic Resume

Now that we’ve settled how great of a player Steph is, let’s see where he stands within the tapestry of the NBA’s storied history.

Curry is a two-time MVP and won the award back-to-back in 2015 and 2016. The list of players who’ve ever done that is a who’s who of the NBA’s greatest players (+ Steve Nash).

Wilt, Russell, Kareem, Moses, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Duncan, and LeBron are the names that defined the different eras of the league. The only other point guards on that list are Magic Johnson and Steve Nash.

Steph has also won three titles. The only other star point guards to do the same since 1963 is just as short a list. There’s Magic Johnson, Tony Parker, and Dennis Johnson.

We can obviously conclude that Steph has had a greater career than Parker, DJ or Steve Nash, but Magic is of course the gold standard when talking about the all-time greatest point guards of all-time.

Magic has clearly reached the mountaintop of NBA basketball numerous times, both in terms of championships and individual MVP seasons, just like Curry has. But what Steph has under his belt over Magic Johnson is the greatest statistical season by a point guard in NBA history.

Steph’s ‘15–’16 Season was the Greatest ever for a PG

You don’t have to go too far down the list of greatest seasons ever to find Steph’s immaculate campaign in ‘15-’16. That year Curry had a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) score of 31.46 — that’s the ninth best single-season campaign in NBA history, and not just for point guards.

There are only four players who have ever done better than Steph — Wilt Chamberlain who appears three times and also tops the list, Michael Jordan twice, LeBron James twice, and Giannis Antetokounmpo by just a hair from last season.

To find the next point guard on the list, you’d have to go down to 18th for Russell Westbrook’s high-usage and highly-scrutinized ‘16-’17 MVP season. In the top 100 PER seasons ever, the only other point guards to make the list are Chris Paul at 25th and Oscar Robertson at 84th.

Steph even shows up again at 61st for his ‘17-’18 season before we even get to Magic Johnson’s best all-time season. Magic first made the list at 110th for his 27.03 PER campaign in ‘86-’87.

Stephen Curry has reached the highest high that any point guard in NBA history has ever achieved. He’s gotten the accolades, the rings, and the numbers to show for it. The only thing that’s kept Stephen Curry from being the clear-cut best point guard in NBA history might actually be himself.

Steph Curry’s Biggest Hurdle is Himself

The best thing about Steph Curry is that he isn’t trying to be the greatest, nor is he worrying about his place in the history of the league. Curry just plays and does what’s best for the team, which is exactly how the purest of NBA critics and coaches would want their star player to act.

Despite being one of the most lethal scoring threats to ever play, his usage rate is astronomically low for a player of his skill set. His brilliant ‘15-’16 numbers came with just a 32.6% usage rate, which rates just 84th all-time — ridiculously low when considering how historically productive he was.

The only thing that’s kept Stephen Curry from being the clear-cut best point guard in NBA history might actually be himself.

In contrast, Russell Westbrook and James Harden respectively posted the two highest usage seasons in NBA history with rates of 41.7% and 40.5% respectively during their own MVP seasons.

To put that in perspective, there are currently 15(!!!) active players that have posted higher usage rates than Curry even in his most selfish year. That list includes players such as Devin Booker, Carmelo Anthony, Bradley Beal, Trae Young, Isaiah Thomas, and DeMarcus Cousins. If any player deserves the greenest of green lights to fire at will, it’s Steph Curry and it’s not even close.

Stephen Curry could have easily demanded a greater share of possessions. With how efficient he is already, it would have been fully warranted. But that’s just never been what he’s about.

Curry isn’t concerned about being the man more than he is about what’s best for the team. He could’ve easily had astronomically silly numbers if he wanted to. The fact that he’s still posted some insanely productive seasons anyway is a testament to his transcendent talent.

We forget that following his all-time ‘15’-’16 season, he made the ultimate sacrifice that a star player could possibly make. He shared the role of alpha on his own team to sign Kevin Durant, a step back that very few super-duper stars would ever make.

Signing Durant meant fewer shots, lesser numbers, fewer headlines, and clearly less individual glory after he had just put up the greatest single-season performance for a point guard ever the year prior. But ask him now and I’m sure he’d take the two rings and the team success over everything else.

With the departure of KD to the Brooklyn Nets last offseason, the door is open once again for Steph to remind us of just how great he actually is.

This case that Curry has built is already a strong one, but the best part about it is he isn’t done just yet. We can already revel in Steph’s greatness and creative innovation so far, but there’s still a final chapter yet to be written.

Steph never subscribed to the positional norms that were thrust upon him by AAU coaches, media critics, or even NBA scouts. He always bent them. In doing so he forever changed what it meant to be a point guard.

Steph Curry is the league’s greatest point guard of all-time and he never even tried to be one. Instead, they changed the position to be more like him.