The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Why Steph Curry is #6 on my NBA player rankings for 2025 NBA season | Golden State Warriors
Episode Date: September 4, 2025Jason dives into Stephen Curry's greatness, how his age factors into his NBA ranking, his chemistry with Golden State Warriors co-stars Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green, how Steph compares to a younger... star like Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves, and why his impact goes beyond the box score. #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Welcome to Hoops tonight here at The Volume.
Happy Monday, everybody.
Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week.
We are continuing our player rankings today with number six,
Steph Curry.
I'm very excited to dive into Steph Curry today.
I think he's actually becoming a little underrated again.
It's kind of a weird thing that has followed Steph Curry around in his career as weird things
happened like he didn't receive any finals MVP votes in 2015 or many people thought
Kevin Durant was better than him or people thought that he was going to fail right
after Kevin Durant left the team.
And for whatever reason, it took the 2022 championship for people to properly respect.
Steph Curry. But in his old age, similar to what we were talking about with LeBron,
I think Steph's entering into a phase where he's being underrated by many folks who follow
the NBA right now. So I'm excited to talk about Steph at number six in today's list.
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on Fridays throughout the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So,
Stefan number six actually ended up being my toughest pick.
for the superstar tier.
There were some other tough ones.
Obviously, when we get up into that trio,
that's like Sheaildas Alexander, Janus, and Luca,
that was a really tough one for me.
The group we just passed,
like that Donovan Mitchell, KD, A, D, LeBron, Jalen Brunson,
like that group, that was a really tough group for me to rank.
But this spot, or more accurately, the five spot,
between Anthony Edwards and Steph Curry,
that was the toughest decision I had to make.
I, you know, when I start this list,
I always do it like a week or two prior.
And then I force myself to sleep on it a bunch of times.
And I keep re-approaching it with a fresh mind and with a fresh set eyes.
And I changed it a lot.
There were several things that moved around.
But this was the one that I moved around just about every time I looked at it.
There were several versions of this list where I'd step at five and aunt at six.
But I ended up landing with aunt at five and step at six.
And it really came down to the totality of the criteria for me.
If both players were healthy for a playoff series tomorrow, I would take Steph.
It's a small margin, but I would take Steph.
I think the OKC series last year for Ant, as well as the Dallas series the year before,
both the last two Western Conference Finals,
I think they exposed Ant as a guy who has some issues
with high-level half-court shot creation against the truly elite defenses in this league.
And we're obviously going to get into more detail about that on Wednesday.
I still think Steph's ability to break defenses just simply by running around and drawing two to the ball
is still one of the most valuable pieces of advantage creation in the entire NBA.
In fact, I think Steph right now going into this next season is still the third best offensive engine in the entire NBA
behind Nicole Yokic and Luca Donchich.
Ant has closed the gap in a lot of ways.
As much as he struggled against Oklahoma City,
which was obviously one of the great defenses in modern NBA history,
he was pretty good against Golden State,
and they weren't as good as OKC defensively,
but that was a very good Warriors defense.
They were the number one defense in the league after the All-Star break.
And you know, you guys remember,
especially games three and four,
when you desperately needed one game to extend that series
so that Steph could potentially come back.
Ant was the guy driving the nail in the coffin.
And the second piece of it,
I think Steph is similar to what we were talking about
with LeBron underrated in terms of his availability.
You actually start to dig into most of the guys on this tier.
Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, Anthony Davis, Victor Wemnon, Yama,
Janice and Tenacompo.
These guys all missed more games.
Luca Donchich.
Like, these guys all missed more games than Steph Curry did
over the last couple of years.
So, like, I think similar to what we were talking about with LeBron, I think these guys are actually underrated in terms of their availability.
But, to put it very simply, Ant is the safest bet in the entire NBA this year to actually make it through an entire regular season in playoff run.
Simple stat to demonstrate this.
Steph missed 16 games last year, which is not that big of a deal.
I mean, the four playoff games obviously were bad, but Steph missed 16 playoff games.
or 16 games total last year.
Ant has missed nine games total in the last three years.
He's played 79 games in each of the last three seasons.
So again, this is the one where I flip-flop the most,
but to me, Ant's overall availability closed the gap
and gave him a slight edge here.
And by the way, if your take is, but Jason,
Steph is a better playoff player than Ant, like I would agree with you.
That's just not how this list works, though.
So Steph comes in at number six this year.
Let's go over his last season really quick.
And this is where a lot of people are going to lose their shit
because we have a lot of box score watchers out there
because Steph didn't have a very statistically impressive season.
But I still view him as one of the very best offensive engines in the NBA,
which we're going to talk about in more detail later.
And to end the season,
this is where it gets a little bit lost in those statistics.
Steph over the final 28 games of the year was producing
at a substantially higher level than he did the first two-thirds of the year.
But again, we'll talk about that in a little bit.
I want to start with a large sample first.
So he played 70 games, second consecutive season with over 70 games played.
Again, he's been more reliable in terms of his regular season availability than most of the players in the superstar tier.
The only real counterpoint here is the Timberwolf series when he pulled his hamstring.
That's certainly worth mentioning.
If you're unavailable in a playoff game, that's certainly a down mark.
The average 25 points, four rebounds and six assists per game this season.
1.1 steals per game.
That was his highest steals mark since 2020.
kind of a resurgence for Steph on the defensive end this year for a better Warriors defense.
In that post-all-star break stretch when Jimmy Butler was on the roster,
Steph averaged 1.4 steals per game as he became a very useful part of the number one ranked defense in the NBA after the All-Star break.
Here's the thing with Steph on the defense event.
I want to spend just a couple minutes talking about defense and we'll spend the rest of the show talking about offense.
He obviously has some limitations on the ball.
He's smaller, right?
But I think a lot of this is overblown by most folks.
When you actually look at all-star guards, shot-creating guards,
like skill guards in the NBA,
almost all of them get targeted.
There are a handful of exceptions.
Like you're not going to try to attack Ant one-on-one, right?
Then he's technically a skill guard who's initiating offense.
but most of the all-star guards in the NBA are also smaller
are also guys that have a lot of offensive workload
and don't devote all their energy to the defensive end of the floor.
That's kind of inherent to that position group.
And I actually think Steph does better than most all-star guards
as an on-ball defender when you try to attack him on an island.
He's surprisingly strong. He's surprisingly big. He's like 6'3.
He moves his feet very well laterally, and he's a super smart defender
that knows how to anticipate what direction you're going.
He knows how to funnel as part of their defensive scheme.
I think Steph's a good on-ball defender for his position group.
He's obviously not going to be the same level of impact
as the bigger, better athletes in the league.
But again, compared to skill guards,
I think he does really well.
Where I think Steph has actually managed to become a quality defender
for his position group is as an off-ball defender.
He's very good at reading plays as they develop,
getting out in front of them and breaking them up with his hands.
Most of his steals come from playing passing lanes or from tagging rollers.
We covered this in film sessions last year,
but he's really good at like kind of sitting behind the roller
and making him look like he's open and then shooting the gap at the last second
and poking the ball away, which is igniting fast breaks going the other way.
So again, like all skill guards in the NBA come with certain limitations,
but I think Steph does better there than most guys do.
His percentages last year, 45% from the field,
40% from 3 and 93% from the line.
That came down to 57%
in effective field level percentage and 62% in true shooting.
Now let's talk about his late season search.
I preached for two years that the Warriors desperately needed a upgrade
in terms of their star talent, right?
I have complimented the Warriors' front office
for the work they've done on the back end of their roster.
I think them being able to like reasonably find 15 dudes who could play last year,
14, 15 dudes who could play.
I think is a testament to the two things.
One, the way that Steph can invert space,
and make shooting less important.
But two, we'll talk about more in a minute.
But the second piece of it is the Warriors front office
has tracked down a lot of these like veteran minimum,
two-way, like, end of the roster type of guys
who are like pretty high basketball IQ,
pretty athletic and quick laterally,
who all can like step in and play rotation minutes.
So to their credit, the front office has been good.
I mean, the comming a situation, I blame on Joe Lekub.
I don't think that's a front office issue.
I think that's a Joe Lacob issue.
And really, them mismanaging that is why they haven't had the star talent.
But there's been a gaping hole in terms of like that high level offensive player
that can play alongside Steph.
Ever since Kevin Doreen left and Clay Thompson was,
Clay Thompson was able to carry that load and Jordan Poole was able to carry that load
in that championship run in 2022, Andrew Wiggins as well.
But as Wiggins declined, as Jordan Poole declined and was traded,
and as Clay Thompson declined, them mismanaging the Cominga situation made it so that they weren't
able to replace that specific role. But in that, as a result of that, for the majority of last season and
the previous season, I don't think Steph had a great deal of belief in what they were doing.
We talk about this all the time, but like, as a competitor, it's very important to believe in your
ability to achieve the ultimate goal. There's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into reaching
that peak of basketball performance.
And like, it's hard to put yourself through that
if you don't think there's going to be a payoff at the end.
The Warriors roster before the Jimmy trade had no shot.
But they bring in Jimmy, all of a sudden,
both Steph and Draymond had like lit a fire underneath them.
It moved him firmly into that group of second tier contenders
that had a legitimate puncher's chance to win the title.
And both of them locked in.
Draymond was amazing down the stretch as he anchored the number one defense
in the league in that span.
And then Steph went up a level.
Again, to start the year before Jimmy Butler joined the team,
Steph averaged just 22.7 points per game on 59% true shooting.
Over those final 28 games after Jimmy joined the team,
Steph's production skyrocketed to 27.3 points per game on 66% true shooting.
66%.
The Warriors went 22 and 6 over those 28 games with Steph on the floor,
and they beat the two seed in the Western Conference first round on the road.
Now that insane workload ended up wearing Steph down
and he ended up breaking down in that Timberwolf series,
but during that stretch, Steph was able to reach a level
that matched the top tier superstars in the league.
Again, that's the criteria for this tier of players.
From Ant, that group from five all the way down to 14,
whether it's Ant and Wembe for youthful inconsistency
or it's Kauai and Joel Embed age-related or LeBronstaff KD age-related,
you know, Jalen Brunson, a little bit of shot variance and this lack of size
and ability to impact the game defensively, whatever it is,
those groups, that group, all of them have inconsistency.
But they have to, in order to be in that tier for me,
they have to be able to reach that top tier level for stretches.
And Steph, I thought, reached that over the final.
third of the season, essentially.
All right, some quick play type data.
And then we'll dive more into the idea of Steph as an offensive engine.
He ran 899 pick and rolls last year, including passes.
He got 1.05 points per possession in them.
That was in the 77th percentile.
Ranked 13th out of the 26 players to log at least 750 pick and rolls.
Now, that may not seem like a super impressive statistic.
But again, when you're talking about pick and roll including passes,
I think that's pretty incredible considering the level of offensive.
of talent that he was surrounded with.
Again, for a large chunk of the year,
it was like Andrew Wiggins,
not the best version of him either.
And, you know, Brandon Pajamsky and Moses Moody
and inconsistent Jonathan Kaminga
and a lot of young,
flawed role players in the lineup.
Like, it was not, you know,
Buddy Heald was out there with his inconsistent shooting.
Like, it was not the best set of offensive talent
that he was playing with.
And he was still producing at a high level offensively
when he was on the floor with those guys.
Now, similar to LeBron, he's not the same one-on-one player he was in years past.
When he shot out of ISO last year, he got to 0.87 points per possession, which was below average.
Now, again, I think it's just more match-up-oriented.
If you give Steph an upright wing, someone like of Dylan Brooks or Jabari Smith Jr.
Like we saw on the Rocket Series, I think he can shake those guys and get good looks one-on-one.
But the smaller, quicker guards, Steph's having a lot harder time getting.
separated from those guys than he used to.
That is obviously reflecting in the one-on-one numbers.
So Jason, if Steph's production in play-type data
is generally mediocre compared to his peers,
why do you have him all the way up at number six?
For similar reasons to why I had Tyrese Halliburton in the top 10,
despite Tyrese had even less impressive statistical production than Steph.
Really comes down to this simple idea that I want to dive into here.
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The threat of Steph Curry as a shooter coming off of an on-or-off ball screen is still so substantial
that it breaks defenses and creates countless advantages for.
his teammates to benefit from. Let's start with a simple fact that the fear of Steph in these
situations is legitimate. These coaches are scared for a reason. These players are scared for a reason.
Here are three basic stats that demonstrate this fact. First, you simply cannot leave Steph open.
An unguarded catch and shoot threes last year, he shot 52%. Made more than half of them. That's more
than 1.5 points per shot. You cannot leave him open. Secondly, you have to have to be a lot of
have to play up on his shot when he's dribbling.
He was the best pull-up jump shooter in the NBA last year.
He was the only player in the entire NBA last year
to attempt at least 500 shots off the dribbled
and to get over 1.1 points per attempt on them.
13 players attempted that many.
The other 12 were below 1.1 points per attempt.
So when he's dribbling, you got to be up on the shot.
And then lastly, when it comes to off ball screens
or dribble handoffs, anything that has Steph running into the ball,
you simply have to have someone meet him on the other side.
If you let him come off free and clear and shoot,
it's going to go poorly for you.
On both dribble handoffs and off-screen possessions last year,
Steph shot 44% from three.
On off-screen plays in particular,
he was by far the best player in the league.
He made 109 shots coming off of off-ball screens.
That was 21 more than Devin Booker in second place.
And he was far and away the most efficient.
There were 18 players that logged at least 100 possessions shooting off of off ball screens.
Steph was the only player to log over a 1.2 offensive rating.
He was at 1.22.
Second place was Yokic at 1.17.
Five points better than the second best player in the field per 100 shots.
Again, if you let Steph come off of an off ball screen and shoot, it was a 122 offensive rating.
So yeah, Steph's overall scoring numbers weren't as impressive over the last couple of years.
why because he was surrounded by extremely limited offensive talent
which forced him to take a lot of really difficult shots
and to do it against some pretty absurd defensive coverages
but the problem for defenses persists
if you leave Steph open he's going to hit more than half of his threes
if you give Steph space when he's dribbling
he's the best pull-up shooter in the NBA
and if you let him come clean off of a dribble handoff
or a wide pin down he's
literally going to hit 44% of his threes.
So what does that mean?
It means that NBA coaches don't give a shit
about what his basketball reference page says.
It means NBA players who have to guard him.
Don't give a shit what his basketball reference page says.
They know how good Steph Curry is,
and they always account for him.
When he catches at the three-point line,
they panic, chase him off the line.
When he's dribbling, they play up on the shot aggressively,
Those two things allow him to generate a ton of dribble penetration as those defenders go past him.
They make mistakes on switches because they never want to leave him open,
which leaves countless openings on the other side when the other guy is wide open.
And then every time he comes off of an on or off ball screen of any type,
there's always the big or whoever it is meeting him on the other side
because they cannot allow him to come off free and clear because he's going to hit 44% of those
threes. And so as a result, they generate countless four on three advantages on the back end.
So yeah, Steph didn't reach the same individual ceiling he did in years past statistically.
But he was still one of the very best advantage creators in the entire NBA last year.
And the proof is in the numbers. According to cleaning the glass, which just filters out garbage time,
The Warriors with Steph Curry on the floor last year logged a 120 offensive rating.
That group, Pajamsky, Wiggins, Moody, Jimmy Butler for a third of the year,
Buddy Healed, 120 offensive rating.
They were 13 points per 100 possessions worse on offense when Steph stepped off the floor.
So to put it very simply, just the threat of Steph's shooting, even when he's not producing at
super high level individually is enough to make a mediocre group of offensive players
in elite offense in the NBA. Again, just for perspective, the Cavs had the number one offense
in the NBA last year at a 121 offensive rating. Steph on the floor, according to cleaning the glass
120. By the way, we talked about this in the intro, but the failure to understand this very
simple concept is what led to Steph being so underrated for most of his prime. You want to know why
Steph didn't win finals MVP or even receive a single vote in 2015.
You want to know why everyone thought KD was better than him when they were together?
You want to know why Damien Lillard and so many others thought the Warriors were just going to fall
apart after KD left?
You want to know why it took the 2022 title for people to properly respect Steph.
And you want to know why so many people are going to hate this ranking and view him as less than what he is to this day.
it was this concept, this idea of Steph running off of screens, running off of on and off ball screens,
and the threat of his shooting, creating all of these openings in people being unable to see it.
People literally watched Steph draw two to the ball over and over again at the end of the 2015 finals,
but because Andre Guadala was the beneficiary with wide open corner threes and cutting dunks,
he won finals MVP.
that's how much it broke people's brains.
It became a buzzword, right? Gravity.
So much so that I think it almost became something
that people made fun of Warriors fans for.
But it is the reality of what it's like to play basketball
on the same team as Steph Curry.
Time and time again, year after year,
people saw the Warriors play basketball
and they couldn't see what he was doing
to make things work for their offense.
Even in the KD years.
In 2017, when Steph was on the floor
and KD was off,
they had a 119 offensive rating, which was incredible for that era.
When KD was on the floor and Steph was off, 10-09 offensive rating, a 10-point difference.
It was a 9-point difference in 2018.
Look, I think Steph fans get carried away when they start trying to stack him up against LeBron
and trying to say that he's better than LeBron.
But they aren't far off in their assessment of him.
I think he's the fifth best perimeter player of all time.
I think he's the second best offensive engine I've ever seen behind Nicole Yokic.
And frankly, I just don't understand why so many people have struggled to see it over the years.
Steph also provides you with a great deal of team building flexibility.
Without Steph on the floor this year, I should say if you take Steph's threes out of the equation,
the Warriors shot 953 for 2691 from 3.
That was 35%.
which is already not very good under any circumstances before you factor in that most of those
threes were essentially conceded by the defense as they overplayed Steph and tried to force
guys like Draymond and Brandon Pajemski to shoot and knock down threes, right?
How do you get away with having that level of shooting and still post a 120 offensive rating
with steps on the four? It's because of his ability to invert spacing.
Him constantly pulling Biggs out to the perimeter as they had to show.
on screens, created four on threes without rim protectors.
That allowed Golden States management to focus on loading up on smart athletes that can
defend rather than needing shooters.
Now, to be clear, if they want to reach championship ceiling, I think they're going to need
to add more shooting.
That's why I'm stoked about them potentially adding Al Horford.
It's why it'd be great if they could get some shooting talent back into Jonathan
Kaminga signed and trade.
But the amount of shooting they need is less than most teams need.
because of this unique dynamic that Steph creates.
Again, we talked about it earlier,
but he created a role on offense that Draymond can thrive in.
There are many teams in this league
that Draymond could immediately make better on defense,
but there aren't too many teams in this league
that he could be a functioning part of offensively.
Not the case in Golden State.
He's been wonderful there
because of that inverted spacing dynamic we're talking about.
Now, one last caveat was Steph before we kind of get into closing things up today.
There is a big difference between Steph when he's being an offensive engine
versus when he's being an offensive engine that is also hanging 27 points per game on 66% true shooting.
The Warriors' offense last year, even just looking from before Jimmy joined the team
to after Jimmy joined the team when Steph went up a level,
the Warriors' offense was four points better per 100 possessions in that stretch
after February 8th
than it was the entire season before that.
So as we look at next season,
one of the biggest swing factors
for Steph and the Warriors
in terms of the level of success
they will reach
and how much of a chance
they have to compete for the title,
it's going to come down to
what version of Steph are we getting?
Are we getting 22 point per game,
59% true shooting Steph?
Or are we getting 27 point per game,
65% true shooting stuff?
That's going to be a big swing factor.
The threat of Steph shooting
is enough to make any offense good.
But it will take the threat of step shooting
and him managing to hit high volume and efficiency numbers
as an individual for them to hoist the trophy this year
if that's their ultimate goal.
Just something to keep an eye on.
I just view Steph as a player that is far more valuable
than his box score production would lead you to believe.
Just the sheer threat of his shooting ability
turned an incredibly limited offensive roster last year
into a 120 offensive rating unit
when he was on the floor according to cleaning the glass.
He's still one of the very best offensive engines in the entire NBA.
Like I mentioned earlier, I'd rank him third
behind Nicola Yokic and Luca Donchich.
And he demonstrated last year down the stretch
that he can still hit that superstar volume
and efficiency as a score.
You combine that with him being one of the better defenders
among skill guards in the league,
an incredibly stateable leadership presence.
I think he's one of the best leaders in the NBA.
he's more experienced than many of the players in this tier.
I have Steph holding down the number six spot
in this year's player rankings.
All right, guys, that's all I have for today.
As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show.
We will be back on Wednesday
with a deep dive into Anthony Edwards.
I'll see you guys.
Hey, guys, it's us.
The Jonas Brothers.
I'm Joe.
I'm Kevin.
And I'm Nick.
And guess what?
We created our own podcast called,
Hey, Jonas.
We invented a podcast.
Well, we didn't invent it.
We just contributed to it.
We're the first people to do podcast.
We get to ask other people questions
because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.
Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it,
but, you know, tired and sick.
Tired and sick.
Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcast.
Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.
Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy,
not quite.
Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends.
Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman
help make you funnier.
This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer
Street or Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.
Where does your group perform?
We do some retirement homes.
Those people are starving for banter.
Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Winning on Clay is an art.
The rallies are relentless.
And at the French Open, only the toughest survive.
I'd know.
I competed there for decades.
Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no nonsense breakdowns of the biggest
matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris.
Genschen won.
She's an outsider to win the French fame.
And she likes Clay.
Listen, Lennar Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually
can win on any surface.
Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.
I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever
reported on.
a Mormon polygamist, and an Armenian businessman.
Multi-million dollar house,
Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets,
a billion-dollar fraud.
But how long can this alliance last?
Tell me what you know.
Is somebody coming after me?
Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an I-Heart podcast.
Guaranteed Human.
