I agree. All I am saying is in situations where a guy is stuck one on one in crunch time against a good defender he is not as good as the other greats.
I will say he’s looked easier to lock down this year. It becomes apparent when we run those dumb isos at the end of games and he has to do some horrible heave after dribbling around
If we are talking playoffs though, then this regular season is irrelevant imo. Curry was slumping in the middle of the 2021-2022 season too and we saw how he looked come playoff time in that one.
Although they gotta get to the playoffs this season for us to find out lol.
Depends on which greats we’re talking about, right? And please use the reply button, as it allow readers to follow the conversation (or ignore it, lol).
I’m not ready for this road trip. I have a feeling the last few games have only been the start of it. It’s about to get ugly. Uglier than what we’ve witnessed these last 2 games. I’m talking down 60 with Steph throwing a chair.
Three pretty weak teams (Chicago, Memphis with basically Bane and JJJ, Utah) and Milwaukee.
If Draymond comes back for the Milwaukee game and plays a reasonable amount (a big if), that's three winnable games and one that might be a 20 point loss.
I expect to see a little more fire in the Chicago game. The players have to be pretty embarrassed by that last outing.
They are probably not catching Chicago at the right time tbh, 6-4 in their last 10 and won 3 in a row. They are DEFINITELY not catching Utah at the right time, 8-2 in their last 10 and won 3 in a row.
Memphis is also 6-4 in their last 10 but they just lost Morant and Smart so they probably don't qualify.
As Steve Kerr said recently “defense is being officiated out of the NBA” - nba2k is going to replace the real game at this rate unless silver and co address it
In Steph’s playoff career he has shot 45% overall and 39.7 from 3 in I believe 147 games.
He had what many consider to be the second best shooter ever in Klay.
He had KD for an around 50 games.
All I am saying is he needs a specific style of play and a little more help than the other top 10 guys and it is just a reality because of his size and lack of great physical tools like MJ, Lebron, etc.
He is unquestionably the greatest shooter ever but he needs more help to score, which where playing 5 on 5 comes into play. Within that 5 on 5 game are situations that are 1 on 1 and in those situations, especially end of game, he is not MJ or many others for what that is worth.
So when he is rolling within the system he is better than anyone in my opinion, but when that ain’t happening it is a different story.
LeBron shot 40% and 31% from 3 in the 2015 Finals, and people wanted to give him the MVP because they said his teammates sucked (and they wanted to throw asterisks on the championship cuz the Cavs didn’t have their best players)… meanwhile, when Steph has sub-par teammates around him, it’s “see, Steph’s just a system guy”. SMDH
Wooden coached before the 3 point line so FG% was a good proxy for scoring efficiency. After the 3 pt line, you have to at the very least look at points per possession.
One team tries to shoot the ball in the basket, and their opponent tries to keep them from doing so ... pretty basic part of basketball that has not changed.
One ball going through the basket is worth 150% of another... in the modern game people play now, relying on field goal percent comparisons on their own would be like measuring "goal percent" in football and just count up field goals and touchdowns all vaguely mixed together in the same statistic.
agreed and different teams score in different ways, so FG% can mislead when viewed purely as a # . Unless one watches the game many of the numbers can be misleading.
> I always remember hearing John Wooden say the FG% was the first stat he looked at
That was before the three-point era. (And even then it was flawed by not including FT or FTA). Today it shows neither overall team efficiency nor player efficiency. It's completely useless and misleading as a measure of efficiency unless taken with a whole bunch of other context (FT, FTA, 2FG, 2FGA, 3FG, 3FGA); and even with that context there's no way to readily make sense of it without doing a ton of math.
What does this have to do with field goal percentage not being very useful? If they officiated differently and gave less FTs I'dike the game more. But I care about 3p% differently from 2p% depending on player and context. Field goal percentage doesn't account for that at all. At least true shooting balances everything roughly properly, even if that's not the only thing you should look at.
I am not sure that TS% would really be that much better an indication of a team's offense performance vs how the opponents's defense is working... and vice versa how well a team's defense played against the opponents offense.
I have not looked at a lot of the expanded analytics nor done all the math, but I do think there can be some use for team FG% as a measure of team play.
TS is just # of points scored per scoring attempt (divided by 2), which is the literal definition of scoring efficiency.
Given an exactly equal # of possessions, saying “Team X had a higher TS% than Team Y” is just another way of saying “Team X won.” That can’t remotely be said for FG%. Put simply, TS% is a measure of scoring efficiency where FG% is not.
But FG% is not only useless as a measure of efficiency — it’s also misleading. (Or as Alex put it above, “wonderfully vague”) Unlike FT% or 3FG% which actually tell you something specific and clear, FG% ham-handedly conflates 3FGA and 2FGA, thereby producing a number that confuses and conceals more than it clarifies.
FG% ...producing a number that confuses and conceals more than it clarifies
To me it does show how well an individual player is shooting the ball, and how well a team's offense manages to get shots they can make against the opponent.
The shots may not always be open or the result of offensive plays, but if the shots are going in... usually it is a sign that either the team is doing something right on offense, or the opponent is playing poorly on defense. ...no matter if they are layups or three pointers...
Yes, defenses need to play differently with so many great long distance shooters. More history... Don Nelson said he liked the 3 pt. line's introduction in part because he thought it would open up the middle as defenses shifted to have to guard deeper ... I'm not sure that has actually happened .
No great mystery how the Warriors blew them off the floor in games #4-5-6. Having your top scorer score a measly 95 points per 100 possessions used — while the other team's top guy puts up 117 — all but guarantees your team will lose.
Filtered for a reasonable # of games played, Steph is the most efficient high volume playoff scorer ever. And that's without accounting for his gravity.
> So when he is rolling within the system he is better than anyone in my opinion, but when that ain’t happening it is a different story.
Everyone is better when they are rolling within a great system than when they are not.
I'll just throw a counter point not that I disagree with you. Steph's gravity of offense is legendary. Almost any competent offense should be able to leverage to be absolutely dangerous. Steph is an offensive multipler.
On defense, he obviously needs a size surrounding him.
This year and last seaosn on offense have been....uhhhh....anything buy competent.
Former Washington Wizards and Golden State Warriors guard Ryan Rollins has been accused of shoplifting, with incidents alleged to have occurred from mid-September to mid-November in Alexandria, Va.
Golden State Warriors Receive: De'Andre Hunter, Dejounte Murray
Dejounte Murray is officially trade-eligible and readily available, as Shams Charania noted during FanDuel's Run It Back on Tuesday. He isn't what you'd call a prototypical Warriors player, but he's averaging over 20 points and five assists while splashing in 38.6 percent of his triples—including 41.2 percent of his pull-up treys, a top-six mark among 41 players to attempt at least 75 of these looks.
Though Murray's defense has slipped a notch or two this year, he's absolutely an upgrade over what Golden State is doing now—particularly with Gary Payton II sidelined. The Warriors would still skew small if they tried playing him with Stephen Curry and Brandin Podziemski, but that's a more palatable mini trio than one with 38-year-old, 6'0" Paul.
Hunter's inclusion is either prohibitive or a home run. He has three years and $69.9 million left on his contract after this one, is a suboptimal rebounder and passer and not a lockdown defender. But he has nailed his threes when healthy and, most critically, been much better than Andrew Wiggins this season.
Taking on his money at the very least incentivizes Atlanta to re-flip Murray for less than it gave up for him in the first place. The Hawks also get to leave this deal with a flier on the underutilized Moody, a first-rounder and tons of cap relief this summer—something we know their ownership group is always, always interested in, even when they won't admit it.
Housing Hunter, Kuminga and Wiggins all at once might be an overkill of 3-4s who don't pass or rebound enough. The Warriors don't have to be done moving and shaking. Murray alone makes them a much better team, and his upcoming contract (four years, $114.1 million) is reasonable enough that it could yield more trade value later
Is using Emojis like this considered rude? Didn’t mean to be rude to the man who does great work. Just meant to succinctly share my thoughts on this particular trade and the idea of trading for Murray.
I thought he was bad in his big year on a tanking spurs team and thought Atlanta would be worse when they traded for him. They have certainly not been better for the trade and now the Warriors want him? Please someone tell them he’s not the answer. He’s like a short Wiggins without the upside, and this trade would leave them both on the team and make them borderline unwatchable in the wins they might scrape together. I can’t even imagine what brilliant lineups this year’s Kerr would come up with with that many ball stoppers and theoretical defenders on the team.
I'll be in the minority, and I do understand why, but I wouldn't mind this at all. I like that both these guys offer good positional value, because it creates some flexibility in terms of what type of player would need to come back in any subsequent trades.
I couldn’t think of a great way to signal how dumb that quote is… it basically says: “whoooo boy, that Warriors defense stinks, so even though he’s not a good defender anymore, there’s no way adding him could make their defense worse.” Which… is not the most ringing endorsement lol, but you gotta meet article quota and word count.
https://dubnationhq.com/p/are-you-still-riding-with-these-golden do you still believe
The Bulls game is just what Mike Dunleavy ordered. All the trade pieces balled out. All should
Be held out tonight so they don’t revert back to earth.
Suns beat the Lakers 127-109. Suns are now 20-18 and 9-7 on the road while the Lakers are now 19-20 and 13-7 at home.
Suns up 105-78 against the Lakers after 3 quarters
Beal 8/10 from 3 pt tonight - damn- that’s some stellar defense from the flakers - especially since refs are not calling many fouls
Lakers go on a 10-0 run in the 4th to cut the lead by 1/3rd to 20 points 😬
Lakers crowd are ready to boo their team - down 17 points to the suns with 3:15 to go in the second quarter
If I was a lakers fan watching this game, I would feel very much like a warriors fan watching the recent few games - absolutely sh***y
Lakers are in trouble. Like the Warriors, they will have to bring their A game in order to make the Play In.
I agree. All I am saying is in situations where a guy is stuck one on one in crunch time against a good defender he is not as good as the other greats.
Ahh ... BS IMHO
Assuming this is about Curry, I thought these talking points got deaded years ago tbh.
I will say he’s looked easier to lock down this year. It becomes apparent when we run those dumb isos at the end of games and he has to do some horrible heave after dribbling around
If we are talking playoffs though, then this regular season is irrelevant imo. Curry was slumping in the middle of the 2021-2022 season too and we saw how he looked come playoff time in that one.
Although they gotta get to the playoffs this season for us to find out lol.
Playoffs?!?!?!
I still think this year feels different than the others, but not counting out that Draymond changes everything.
Draymond will help but he is not likely to change everything. Prove me wrong, Dray!
He certainly does!
Depends on which greats we’re talking about, right? And please use the reply button, as it allow readers to follow the conversation (or ignore it, lol).
And in untested news - Ryan Rollins accused of shoplifting from Target - that is really sad to hear
https://theathletic.com/5197330/2024/01/11/former-wizards-and-warriors-guard-ryan-rollins-accused-of-shoplifting-from-target/?source=user_shared_articleFormer Wizards and Warriors guard Ryan Rollins accused of shoplifting from Target
dude... what are you doing??
> the items alleged to have been stolen in each incident were valued at less than $1,000.
This just so hard for me to understand for somebody who is making an NBA salary.
Kleptomania is a thing and he skins like he needs mental health support
My heart sinks to read this. Still hoping good things for him.
I never knew Steph’s daughter was named after Larry Riley
I’m not ready for this road trip. I have a feeling the last few games have only been the start of it. It’s about to get ugly. Uglier than what we’ve witnessed these last 2 games. I’m talking down 60 with Steph throwing a chair.
Twisting his ankle and out for 4 weeks............
Three pretty weak teams (Chicago, Memphis with basically Bane and JJJ, Utah) and Milwaukee.
If Draymond comes back for the Milwaukee game and plays a reasonable amount (a big if), that's three winnable games and one that might be a 20 point loss.
I expect to see a little more fire in the Chicago game. The players have to be pretty embarrassed by that last outing.
They are probably not catching Chicago at the right time tbh, 6-4 in their last 10 and won 3 in a row. They are DEFINITELY not catching Utah at the right time, 8-2 in their last 10 and won 3 in a row.
Memphis is also 6-4 in their last 10 but they just lost Morant and Smart so they probably don't qualify.
Utah is hot… they will destroy us (yes, using reverse psychology here)
Won 9 out of their last 11 games. Lost to the Pels and the Celtics, but beat the Pistons (x2), Raptors, Spurs, Heat, Mavs, 76ers, Bucks, and Nuggets.
Not saying it's a guaranteed win ... I don't think we have any of those, anymore. :) But, by then, Dray should be playing. That will help.
Unfortunately we don’t have Damion Lee this time around for Chicago
….Throwing a chair onto the remains of Kerr’s clipboard.
C'mon nobody ever goes down 60.
(Checks NBA scoreboard...)
As Steve Kerr said recently “defense is being officiated out of the NBA” - nba2k is going to replace the real game at this rate unless silver and co address it
In Steph’s playoff career he has shot 45% overall and 39.7 from 3 in I believe 147 games.
He had what many consider to be the second best shooter ever in Klay.
He had KD for an around 50 games.
All I am saying is he needs a specific style of play and a little more help than the other top 10 guys and it is just a reality because of his size and lack of great physical tools like MJ, Lebron, etc.
He is unquestionably the greatest shooter ever but he needs more help to score, which where playing 5 on 5 comes into play. Within that 5 on 5 game are situations that are 1 on 1 and in those situations, especially end of game, he is not MJ or many others for what that is worth.
So when he is rolling within the system he is better than anyone in my opinion, but when that ain’t happening it is a different story.
Fun fact: Curry has the highest TS% of any 25+ PPG scorer in NBA playoff history.
One of the very best playoff performers of all-time, proven in both stats and rings.
EDIT: Wait, I forgot that AD is now the leader of that stat actually, Curry is #2. But AD also isn't a #1 option like Curry.
EDIT2: Sleepy beat me to it.
LeBron shot 40% and 31% from 3 in the 2015 Finals, and people wanted to give him the MVP because they said his teammates sucked (and they wanted to throw asterisks on the championship cuz the Cavs didn’t have their best players)… meanwhile, when Steph has sub-par teammates around him, it’s “see, Steph’s just a system guy”. SMDH
Yes he is a system player - it’s called the nba refereeing and rules !
As Sleepy pointed out, your stats are pretty misleading, which is why people no longer use
the wonderfully vague FG% in discussions about scoring efficiency.
I always remember hearing John Wooden say the FG% was the first stat he looked at after a game to analyze team performance.
Used in that way it can show a team's overall efficiency on offense and which may also indicate the quality of defense.
One would have to have watched the game to determine how much was offensive performance and how much was the defending.
FG % may not be so useful for individual evaluations.
Wooden coached before the 3 point line so FG% was a good proxy for scoring efficiency. After the 3 pt line, you have to at the very least look at points per possession.
"John Wooden says" was not the argument I was expecting, I'll be honest :)
A lot of things change in the passing of time...
One team tries to shoot the ball in the basket, and their opponent tries to keep them from doing so ... pretty basic part of basketball that has not changed.
One ball going through the basket is worth 150% of another... in the modern game people play now, relying on field goal percent comparisons on their own would be like measuring "goal percent" in football and just count up field goals and touchdowns all vaguely mixed together in the same statistic.
What has changed is the part where a team who “puts the ball in basket” 50 times can get blown off the floor by the who does so only 40 times.
agreed and different teams score in different ways, so FG% can mislead when viewed purely as a # . Unless one watches the game many of the numbers can be misleading.
> I always remember hearing John Wooden say the FG% was the first stat he looked at
That was before the three-point era. (And even then it was flawed by not including FT or FTA). Today it shows neither overall team efficiency nor player efficiency. It's completely useless and misleading as a measure of efficiency unless taken with a whole bunch of other context (FT, FTA, 2FG, 2FGA, 3FG, 3FGA); and even with that context there's no way to readily make sense of it without doing a ton of math.
TLDR: just use TS%.
Isn’t it great that FT’s make up such a big part of efficiency these days? Surely a sign the NBA is heading in the right direction!
What does this have to do with field goal percentage not being very useful? If they officiated differently and gave less FTs I'dike the game more. But I care about 3p% differently from 2p% depending on player and context. Field goal percentage doesn't account for that at all. At least true shooting balances everything roughly properly, even if that's not the only thing you should look at.
I am not sure that TS% would really be that much better an indication of a team's offense performance vs how the opponents's defense is working... and vice versa how well a team's defense played against the opponents offense.
I have not looked at a lot of the expanded analytics nor done all the math, but I do think there can be some use for team FG% as a measure of team play.
TS is just # of points scored per scoring attempt (divided by 2), which is the literal definition of scoring efficiency.
Given an exactly equal # of possessions, saying “Team X had a higher TS% than Team Y” is just another way of saying “Team X won.” That can’t remotely be said for FG%. Put simply, TS% is a measure of scoring efficiency where FG% is not.
But FG% is not only useless as a measure of efficiency — it’s also misleading. (Or as Alex put it above, “wonderfully vague”) Unlike FT% or 3FG% which actually tell you something specific and clear, FG% ham-handedly conflates 3FGA and 2FGA, thereby producing a number that confuses and conceals more than it clarifies.
FG% ...producing a number that confuses and conceals more than it clarifies
To me it does show how well an individual player is shooting the ball, and how well a team's offense manages to get shots they can make against the opponent.
The shots may not always be open or the result of offensive plays, but if the shots are going in... usually it is a sign that either the team is doing something right on offense, or the opponent is playing poorly on defense. ...no matter if they are layups or three pointers...
Yes, defenses need to play differently with so many great long distance shooters. More history... Don Nelson said he liked the 3 pt. line's introduction in part because he thought it would open up the middle as defenses shifted to have to guard deeper ... I'm not sure that has actually happened .
2015 Finals TS%
Steph .585
LeBron .477
No great mystery how the Warriors blew them off the floor in games #4-5-6. Having your top scorer score a measly 95 points per 100 possessions used — while the other team's top guy puts up 117 — all but guarantees your team will lose.
But he scored 40 points per game! His teammates sucked! He’s the best ever!
The reply button is your friend.
Career playoff true shooting %
Steph .606
KD .598
LeBron .583
MJ .568
Shaq .565
Klay .555
Kobe .541
Filtered for a reasonable # of games played, Steph is the most efficient high volume playoff scorer ever. And that's without accounting for his gravity.
> So when he is rolling within the system he is better than anyone in my opinion, but when that ain’t happening it is a different story.
Everyone is better when they are rolling within a great system than when they are not.
Steph’s physical limitations make it hard for him to be the best in a game of 1 on 1, but he’s the first player you want on your team when it’s 5 on 5
Also I want him if it is 1 on 2 or 1 on 3 or 1 on 4 - he has shown that many times over
I'll just throw a counter point not that I disagree with you. Steph's gravity of offense is legendary. Almost any competent offense should be able to leverage to be absolutely dangerous. Steph is an offensive multipler.
On defense, he obviously needs a size surrounding him.
This year and last seaosn on offense have been....uhhhh....anything buy competent.
https://twitter.com/JoshuaBRobbins/status/1745634070359359680
Josh Robbins
@JoshuaBRobbins
Former Washington Wizards and Golden State Warriors guard Ryan Rollins has been accused of shoplifting, with incidents alleged to have occurred from mid-September to mid-November in Alexandria, Va.
That's a tremendous surprise. Now, there is someone who also needs a good therapist.
He should ask Winona Ryder for hers
Why ask when you can just take…
Seems to speak to boredom…
Sad story :(
To lighten it up a bit - looks like he took iggys mentoring too seriously - go become the “steals” leader 😬
Blazers could win the 4th Q 40-0 ... and they'd still lose by 22.
Scoot Henderson making a run for worst game ever? 4-21 fg, -56 in 31 minutes.
118-56 OKC through 3. o_O
Bleacher Report suggests:
—
Atlanta Hawks Receive: Moses Moody, Chris Paul, Cory Joseph, 2026 first-round pick (top-four protection), 2026 second-round pick (its own), 2028 second-round pick (its own)
Golden State Warriors Receive: De'Andre Hunter, Dejounte Murray
Dejounte Murray is officially trade-eligible and readily available, as Shams Charania noted during FanDuel's Run It Back on Tuesday. He isn't what you'd call a prototypical Warriors player, but he's averaging over 20 points and five assists while splashing in 38.6 percent of his triples—including 41.2 percent of his pull-up treys, a top-six mark among 41 players to attempt at least 75 of these looks.
Though Murray's defense has slipped a notch or two this year, he's absolutely an upgrade over what Golden State is doing now—particularly with Gary Payton II sidelined. The Warriors would still skew small if they tried playing him with Stephen Curry and Brandin Podziemski, but that's a more palatable mini trio than one with 38-year-old, 6'0" Paul.
Hunter's inclusion is either prohibitive or a home run. He has three years and $69.9 million left on his contract after this one, is a suboptimal rebounder and passer and not a lockdown defender. But he has nailed his threes when healthy and, most critically, been much better than Andrew Wiggins this season.
Taking on his money at the very least incentivizes Atlanta to re-flip Murray for less than it gave up for him in the first place. The Hawks also get to leave this deal with a flier on the underutilized Moody, a first-rounder and tons of cap relief this summer—something we know their ownership group is always, always interested in, even when they won't admit it.
Housing Hunter, Kuminga and Wiggins all at once might be an overkill of 3-4s who don't pass or rebound enough. The Warriors don't have to be done moving and shaking. Murray alone makes them a much better team, and his upcoming contract (four years, $114.1 million) is reasonable enough that it could yield more trade value later
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10104320-nba-trade-ideas-from-latest-rumors-and-buzz
So am I in the minority that would rather trade Kuminga than Moody?
Massive overpay that's not even close to a difference maker. Hard pass.
🤢🤮
Is using Emojis like this considered rude? Didn’t mean to be rude to the man who does great work. Just meant to succinctly share my thoughts on this particular trade and the idea of trading for Murray.
I thought he was bad in his big year on a tanking spurs team and thought Atlanta would be worse when they traded for him. They have certainly not been better for the trade and now the Warriors want him? Please someone tell them he’s not the answer. He’s like a short Wiggins without the upside, and this trade would leave them both on the team and make them borderline unwatchable in the wins they might scrape together. I can’t even imagine what brilliant lineups this year’s Kerr would come up with with that many ball stoppers and theoretical defenders on the team.
Please 🙏 don’t do it!
I'll be in the minority, and I do understand why, but I wouldn't mind this at all. I like that both these guys offer good positional value, because it creates some flexibility in terms of what type of player would need to come back in any subsequent trades.
Those writers over at Bleacher Report would be the last place I'd look for credibility.
Probably AI-written
"He has three years and $69.9 million left on his contract after this one, is a suboptimal rebounder and passer and not a lockdown defender."
Sounds fantastic
But…
“ Though Murray's defense has slipped a notch or two this year, he's absolutely an upgrade over what Golden State is doing now”
Which is not playing Moody. But wouldn’t we rather see what Moody can do first?
I couldn’t think of a great way to signal how dumb that quote is… it basically says: “whoooo boy, that Warriors defense stinks, so even though he’s not a good defender anymore, there’s no way adding him could make their defense worse.” Which… is not the most ringing endorsement lol, but you gotta meet article quota and word count.
Of course it involves shooting and Steph would really struggle against an alien with 4 long arms. 😊
I've been out of the country for six weeks. Did anything happen while I was gone?
Duby Dub Dubs returned to DNHQ
In our moment of greatest need. Watching the world burn is always better with friends
The descent into chaos has steadily accelerated
Really? From what I've seen in the news, Podz is a budding star and ticket prices are way lower. Sounds good to me.
And, oh yeah, we brought MJD and Patrick O'Bryant into the front office, right?