It's more than a Beard vs Curry question. When comparing a player's overall game against guys who have won DPOYs, saying "his defense isn't that bad" is a silly argument.
Teleport Present day Curry to the late 80s-90s. He'd struggle against the handcheck rule. Guys like Mookie Blaylock, Stockton would've given him all kinds of fits. Isiah Thomas and the Bad Boys would lock him the F down. Gary Payton would've ate him up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can't be considered the GOAT unless you played during the 80s or 90s. That goes for Lebron as well. (Sorry not sorry).
Simply put, PER privileges high usage players and does little to account for defense. You might as well just look at the traditional boxscore numbers such as points, rebounds, assists, etc.
That sounds like a good reason to use PER - it favors those players who are the focal point of their team's offense.
This is what I don't get. I genuinely wonder if some people who are just beginning to delve into the Curry obsession realize that his career has been thoroughly average in terms of greatness.
curry's numbers are on the way down, westbrook will lead in the PER category at the end of this season
I find this discussion a bit amusing. Steph Curry the GOAT? Maybe he'll be when he retires, but right now he is nowhere near that. His shooting stats are just about identical (except free-trows) with Omri Casspi (sure, if Casspi would shoot from situations that Steph shoots, they would not be). I must admit that the Warriors have found almost the perfect combination of a scorer and the team very much comparable to MJ's Bulls. However, Steph was less than convincing in the Finals and the Warriors won it primarily because of the Cavs running out of players and Iguodala. That was never the case with MJ. He came to the Finals to win it all and nobody could stop him from doing it (and believe me, they tried). Bron comes closer to MJ in that category. At this point, I'm not enough motivated to bring in other examples (to compare MJ, not Steph, with them).
A 33 PER is amazing. Even though its not a perfect player metric, such a feat shouldn't just be dismissed. But I'm sure a player has had a 2-month stretch with greater than a 33 PER several times in the past. I guess by the time this season is over his will drift down to around 30. That still would be one of the all-time great seasons, but not necessarily GOAT.
Yes yes yes, his offense is great. I watch games just to watch what he does on offense, but and this is a big butt, he is one of the worst defenders in the league. He just can't physically guard people because he is not a great athlete. Which makes is offensive outbursts even more impressive. How he looks, is how he plays defense, like a baby girl.
If he keeps this up, this season will go down as the GOAT season. If he keeps this up for 7-8 more years at this level, plus a few rings, then he could challenge for the all time GOAT title. It won't happen. He isn't repeating this season.
Uh Wardell Stephen Curry is retired and is the color commentator for the Charlotte Hornets (no racial)
This. I believe his PER was about 35 in the month of November, so he's already fallen off a bit. I'd say he'll settle around 30. I also don't think his near .700 TS% is sustainable.
He's really damn good but let's not get carried away, this is his first year that is in any way out of line with what the All-Star guards of any given era (Archibald, Wade, KJ, etc) were doing at this point in their careers. Still, could certainly be believable candidate for top-3 PG all time if he stays healthy.
