The Ringer NBA Show - Is Steph Curry the Feel-Good Story of the Year? | The Answer

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Chris is joined by The Ringer's J. Kyle Mann to discuss Steph Curry's play on the court. They weigh in on the debate about whether Curry should be shooting more (5:10), discuss whether James Wiseman was the appropriate pick for the Warriors (24:30), and touch on the trajectory of Curry's career and the legacy he will leave behind (28:40). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: J. Kyle Mann Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NBA season is heating up, and Kevin O'Connor and Chris Vernon have got you covered on the mismatch. They discuss all the news, the trends, and transactions happening around the league. They also offer their on-court analysis and occasionally get into heated debates. Check out the mismatch on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's the answer. I am Chris Ryan, and it has been a depressing week, honestly, between the Jamal Murray injury, the James Wiseman injury, the Lamarcus Aldridge retirement, Zach Levine, missing time in the health and safety protocols. And just a general cloud of wear and terror kind of hovering over this difficult season,

I wanted to focus on something that was giving a lot of NBA fans, a lot of enjoyment this week, and that is Steph Curry? Is Steph Curry in this feel bad season the feel-good story of the year? Now, for Warriors fans, I'm sure that's not the case. I'm sure this is not working out the way that you would hope. But for people who are just like watching incredible feats on the basketball court, like look, just even look for the last week since the last time we were released an answer pod. The Warriors have gone four and one.

Steph has scored 198 points. Last night against Cleveland, he dropped 33, which was his ninth straight 30-point game. And despite Wiseman's injury, or perhaps because of Wiseman's absence, Steph has gone Silver Surfer, you know? And to talk about Steph's run

and how far the dubs can go this season if they go in through the playoff, and if they go into the play-in games to get into the post-season, and whether there's something bittersweet about this whole warrior season, and I wanted to welcome Ringer Video Essayist and Ringer MBA University co-host, Kyle Mann,

back to the answer. Kyle, what's up, man? Not too much, man. Doing pretty good. I appreciated that you included the comic book metaphor because that's kind of one of my favorite things to do with basketball. I don't know, because Steph is a superhero. So I always feel myself like drawn. That's what I always say is

that like if Hawkeye were a human being, I feel like it would be Steph Curry. Like, for real. I'm only slightly kidding. Like, seriously. I'm really pulling for comic books. I hope they a moment in mainstream spotlight soon. You know what I mean? Like, they're kind of an underappreciated asset right now. We're in a dress, Bill.

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that because when I've watched Steph a couple of times over the course of this week and I didn't arbitrarily pick that hero. I mean, we have to get into the mechanics of what the Silver Surfer does versus what Steph Curry does. But there's something about Steph basically playing 80 feet from the basket. and he has got the ball in his hands. He is making underhanded 30-foot passes.

He's pulling up from 35. He's running triple teams. He's basically just three stooges opposing defenses that try to trap him high and he either weaves through them, shoots over them, runs all of them into one another or Draymond. It just feels like he is in complete control

of the orchestra, of the court. He knows exactly what he's doing and he's on a hot streak, which for him means you basically have to duck and cover under a table, like it's the missile crisis or something, because it's all going in. What are you seeing from him this week and how does it making you feel? I mean, what we're seeing is, it's interesting that we're having arguments about is Steph on the level of the season that he had in 2016, you know, five years ago, is he on that level? The fact that we're having that conversation when he's 33 years old is pretty bonkers. Yeah. And I catch myself,

I catch other people saying this. But, I mean, people will make comments about Steph as a player. And he just, he and Draymond together both just break these archetypes of what we've thought of as good in the past. We've thought of, you know, is he someone that can overpower you with his athleticism? And is someone who, and Steph is sort of, if you want to keep with the comic book metaphor, you know, I guess Silver Surfer was the herald of Galactus. I think Steph Curry is the. He is such an anomalistic player in the era that we're in in terms of his volume and efficiency that I think he's the herald of a movement that is coming behind him because he was just the right level of skill to be in. You know, he didn't start the three-point movement.

I know a lot of people have kind of like thumb their noses and said that. No one's saying that he did. It's just that Steph, you were talking about like, he forces you to guard the whole court because of how skilled he is and also because of how he's run more. high ball screens this year because that's he just causes absolute chaos when he does that because he he has insane pace um i was i put in the document that we were sharing here that you know he's hit like 51 percent of his threes after seven or more dribbles which you know there's not many people that are allowed to shoot that many three he's shot over a hundred too so uh i mean yeah i just i get a lot of joy from watching stephen curry play because i think he's the most skilled basketball player

ever to live in terms of the three, you know, the triple threat. Yeah, I mean, there's a, there was a debate going on this week. I think a largely among like Warriors media, but it was starting to like sort of trickle out into the national pods and stuff like that about whether or not he should just be shooting more.

Honestly, whether or not he should be taking 23s a game. You know what I mean? Because like what are the chances that he hits 12? What are the chances that he's hitting 13 a game? Like last night against Cleveland, he was pretty cold. But that was where I kind of wanted to start with last night. It was because like the thing that you saw,

last night was even though he, I think at one point he was like 0 for 8 from 3, everything was still emanating from him. He was getting to the rim. He was, he was scoring on layups, he was scoring on drives. And then he was setting up his teammates like Juan Tisano, Anderson, had a great game last night. And I think that watching a team that is just entirely him makes you almost want to hit rewind on this warrior season. Like watching a team that is built entirely around what Steph can do on the basketball court. it kind of makes you wonder what would happen differently. And I think that this is going to be a season of what ifs for the Warriors.

It's going to be a season about what if Clay hadn't gotten hurt. It's going to be a season of asking, what if we hadn't drafted Wiseman? What if we had taken Lamella Ball? What if we had taken Tyrese Halliburton, et cetera, et cetera. And then I think there's some questions about whether or not they could have been a little bit more active at the break. That being said, I don't know that this, that this Warriors team really could consistently compete with the Lakers, the Clippers. the Jazz in any kind of seven-game series. I think almost weirdly it's nice to have them

have this run at the end of the season and they're going to make the play in tournament possibly like the sporting event of the year if the Mavericks, the Warriors, and the Pelicans are all in the playing tournament in the West. It's going to be like this amazing like first weekend of March Madness kind of situation.

Yeah, if that tournament happens, I mean, I probably am going to watch every second of it. I would just say that, you know, it has three of the league pass MVP's, I would say. And I was kind of, I had this in my notes that like, I think that the reason that Steph is such, I can't think of another player that's like this that like produces more like get to a TV right now per per, you know, per season. Steph is just like a moment machine. He might be like that. I think he may be unparalleled in sports. Yeah. I mean, in terms of like,

you just, you can't, he just keeps defying your belief over and over and over and over again. And I, I was thinking about like in terms of like the scores all time step is the first and the rule changes have done a lot to like cause this to happen but step is like the only player in like that top scores of all time range that doesn't have any back to the basket in his game at all it's all face up and it's all about him stretching the floor but in terms of you know him being a moment machine i was just thinking about in this era where you know to take it to like the tv kind of conversation like in this era where live rights have become have gone to the moon you you know, and I think Steph is the most single valuable commodity within that, wouldn't you say?

Like, he is within this movement of like live TV is so lucrative. Steph seems like the single biggest show on Earth. I don't know. I wish that I had, I wish that there was an option on League Pass to just like tell me when Steph has hit two-threes. Like Steph Red Zone. And it automatically changed the channel. Yeah, I mean, he was like that against Denver this week. He was like that against Oklahoma City this week. I actually just you know when you

when you think about like what you really want to be watching especially this time of the year when it gets a little dreary and people are taking nights off and people are getting hurt it's like what do you really want to see? You want to see either a close game or you want to see excellence. So I mean you can just watch Blazers games and watch them go down 12 and then claw back in the fourth quarter and get into Dame time or you can watch Steph

and just see like does he have not it because he brings it every night but does he have that extra gear tonight where it just seems like everything no matter what whether it's off of one foot, whether it's from 35 feet, whether it's over a six-foot-nine guy is draining. And if that's the case, you should just cancel all your plans, if you have any, and just watch them for the rest of the night. I think it might be useful, actually, for some of the people listening who are not really immersed in Warriors' like kind of fandom right now, which I, you know, to some extent, I'm like obviously riding in the passenger seat on that.

I think it might be worth just kind of setting up the conversation that's been happening around the Warriors this year, because I think, it's one that will sound familiar to fans of different teams in some ways. So this has been obviously an all-time bad beat season in terms of the clay injury. It obviously impacted their draft in a huge way. I think the Warriors went from a team that, you know, if Clay had been healthy coming off that knee injury, what would you have said was their ceiling from this year for this year if they had they had ubrae clay steff wiggins draymond and that pick um i mean it's it's better i don't know

how much better it is um i mean clay is i'm i'm an enormous clay fan i think it would have affected him not being there really affected the whole balance of the team because you know i was making this point that like step and draymond are still good enough together they're like they're basically like an old merry couple on the court they they really orbit each other tightly i the warriors don't force Dremont to play or Steph to play without Dremont. They're kind of like an offensive binary star. And I think that, like, Clay not being there really disrupted what they could run. And that was kind of something that I've noticed in sort of their play style over the past year compared,

or this year compared to past years. And that just had a ripple effect. Can you explain that a little bit for people who don't? So, like, play style, but also what you're seeing? I mean, it's the numbers reflect the eye test with this. because when Steve Kerr took over from Mark Jackson in 2014-15, we remember they just kind of, we knew they were close. He retooled them to say, okay, well, we know we have the two best movement shooters,

maybe ever. We didn't know that at that point. We figured stuff could become that, but Clay really surged. So they reconfigured it to run a ton of off-ball action because both of those guys are really clever cutters too. Now over the past, you know, five years, and that's insane, you know, in terms of the rule, like the rule changes and stuff, to keep up with their constant movement and clever movement.

Like I sent you a clip of Steph. I don't know if you got to see that of him just like dragging defenders that aren't paying attention into each other. Like he does stuff like that and turns NBA defenders into bozos. But with Clay not there, they've had to shift it because if you don't, you know, Ubre is not the same type of intuitive cutter or shooter. Like he really struggled shooting the ball earlier in the year. So you just don't have another clay guy waiting literally on the wings to step into that

role. So they've had to shift it the way that they play. Now, I've heard a lot of people complain about, you know, we need to tailor the system to the players that we have and things like that. It's like, I really think that they're squeezed in a situation here where, you know, they don't want to waste a Steph prime year. They weren't going to just dump the ball to Wiseman and they weren't going to send him to the G League and do that. You know, they're not going to dump it to him, you know, 15 times a game because he's just not an efficient score in that sense. So when Clay wasn't there, it just caused a ripple effect where I think it put undue pressure on. Wiseman in terms of like how he was going to be used because in an ideal world, you're running

that crazy off ball offense. Like people should understand that like no other team in the league has run as much off ball offense as the Warriors have in the last five years. It's like secretariat distance between. And so, you know, I think that they've had to shift in that sense and it's, it's just caused a whole total retooling of it. So you're getting at essentially what is the central tension of this warrior season outside of, did we just waste a prime step year, and not even just a prime step year, but a vintage step year? And was there something else that we, the warriors, could have done to compensate for the loss of clay? Is there a little bit? Because obviously, they had the Wiseman pick and they've got this Minnesota pick. So was there a package that could

have been done, whether it was to get a Beal, whether it is to get a Brandon Ingram, whether it is to get whoever it is, you know, you imagine that would have been available. There's also this tactical. and I think almost identity crisis for the Warriors to some extent with the absence of Clay where, you know, if you've got Ubre, Wiggins, and Wiseman, and they're different players than Clay and, I mean, obviously, Kevin Durant, but like, Clay and, say, Harrison Barnes or whoever it is, that you're still coaching a system for the lineup of death,

but instead you have like Ubrey, Wiggins and Wiseman instead of those guys. and that should there be an adjustment on Steve Kerr's part, possibly getting away from some of the principles that he might believe in as a basketball coach that simplifies the offense, puts guys in better positions to play their game at where it's at in their careers. Or do you still preach your off-ball stuff,

your motion, you're cutting, your whatever it is, and hope that those dudes pick it up along the way? So there was basically a system, versus personnel debate. And then there was also a now versus the future debate. Because at a certain point, about, I guess about a month ago, I would say, there was this sort of announcement that James Wiseman was going to start for the rest of the season. And that the focus was on getting him reps, getting him game experience, developing him seemingly at the expense of winning now. And you can look at the since Wiseman has been out or when Wiseman's off the floor, what Steph's production is. And

it's pretty striking. You know, I don't have it right in front of me, but it's definitely like, you blink 30 times when you see that. So essentially this is the same. You can transfer this to any team, but like you're having a coach,

you have a really successful coach who's got three rings talking about, hey, this is the way that the Warriors play. This is our culture. This is our style. This is our identity. And then you've got a fan base that has won three rings

and is maybe not down to like, downshift into second as the rest of the world. league goes off and enjoys the season. And now they've had this success towards the end of the year. It's interesting that it's happening without Wiseman. It's interesting that it's happening without Ubrey. It's happening with Steph Dramon Wiggins. And a bunch of guys that I think Warriors fans have a lot of affection for, but maybe a lot of people don't know about Wantsisconne Anderson or whatever. So what do you think of the debate between the system versus the personnel? Because I think that's

something that's maybe afflicted late period spurs. You know what I mean? The late late late period San Antonio, where it's like, look, like, this is the way we've always done it or this is the way I want to see it done versus, hey, these are the guys we have. Maybe we should just run a lot more pick and roll. I mean, they're kind of different situations, in my opinion. You know, the spurs, I was talking about that over the years, they did shift their play style more than I think people give them credit for. I think their thing was just, you know, they really, they really stuck with the like the Lamarcus de Rosen thing a little longer. I think that people were kind of wondering and why they did that.

I think that Golden State, I think that you could criticize them on the front of, you know, maybe they should have made a move at the deadline to kind of, because there is this idea of sort of rebuilding and threading the needle between, you know, rebuilding in real time. You know, Miami's done a really good job of that,

like just resetting on a year by year basis. For the Warriors, I have hard time really indicting them full bore because, you know, just their plans were totally disrupted by this clay thing. And then you get in a situation where, like I was saying, like Wiseman probably would be in a position to, and in some ways he's just been a little behind, I think, what people thought.

You know, he's been in a situation where he's catching lobs. He's shooting 15 footers. But he's not going to be put really in a position to facilitate, whereas, you know, if Clay was there, he would be sort of, in my opinion right now, the Warriors have an abundance of players who sort of orbit good offense, but they're lacking the pieces that they had before, like the sort of central gravity pieces that sort of balance.

And that's just, that's basketball. You have players that justify having other players orbit them because they're efficient like Steph, and that's all they have right now. So I think in terms of what they're doing like right now, I think it makes the most sense. But I don't know, because of the misfortune that's befallen them, I don't really indict her all that much for it, honestly.

I guess my next question would be, how far off do you think they are from the pace? Like, I know that nobody is a, I don't want to play like armchair doctor and say like, oh, well, when Clay comes back and he looks kind of like the way Durant does, I mean, Clay's had two leg injuries in successive years. Like, we don't know what he's going to look like when he comes back. I know all of us just desperately want him back on the floor and healthy and get get a couple more seasons in there. But let's say Clay comes back at some appropriate percentage of what he was two years ago, three years ago. How far off the pace do you think the Warriors are from the Brooklyn's, the two LA teams, even Utah in this case? Utah is a little bit more in a similar situation. I mean, I don't, we're still going to need to see Utah put the, you know, be, they're going to have to

pass that test, you know, they're still going to have to go into the playoffs and pass that test. So I'd say they're more in, in a similar boat to Utah. But in terms of like competing with these teams that have like, like we were just. talking about like the gravitational pieces it's it's just they're very far behind like like a harden and a kd and and a karee but everyone is because we're in a situation where you use the team use the term post team which i thought i just imagine like these sort of like pitch forky like eras that we could go through in basketball but i was just thinking you know there's no way for them to compete there's no way for teams and front offices to compete just transactionally with

the autonomy that players have over their, over their futures. We're just, we are post that. Like, that's over. So, yeah, and are they going to convince, you know, two other guys to come? I don't know. Do players want to come play for Kerr? They want to come play with, you know, I don't know. And KD's experience there, if that's any kind of indicator for people who might

follow in his footsteps, I don't know. I also don't know about that. But in terms of, like, they could be a really good team again. It's, I just don't know about them entering that. echelon of before because, you know, Dremont has seen some regression as much as much as I love him. But, you know, he's offensively, he is falling off of a cliff and he wasn't great to begin with. And then, you know, Clay, what's he going to be when he comes back? So for them to get back into that conversation, they're going to have to find some way to parlay what they have into another star.

Yeah, they have a very expensive three. And two of those three have question marks. Yeah, Clay's health and you've got Dramon's athleticism may be regressing a little bit or maybe A lot of it. Yeah, a lot of it. So you're still paying the three of them. You know what I mean? So that's your big three,

but you really only have a big one, certainly. And so then your next two guys, the Warriors might want to go as far into luxury tax as humanly possible, but you've got to find the other two guys who can compensate for what you're losing in Clay and Draymond. And I don't know if you can do that. Now, that being said, there are nights when I watch the Warriors and I watch Steph,

and I think that doesn't matter. I think that doesn't matter in two ways. One, just enjoy that you have this. Just enjoy that you are getting to see Steph do what he's doing. And two, like on any given night, he could beat anybody in the world by himself. Do you know what I mean? He can shoot them. They can score 147 and they can just blow anybody else off the floor.

And when it starts raining down, teams will break. And no matter how good the team is, like they will break when that is happening. is that the future of the warriors though? Is the future of the warriors going to be like this kind of like and please like I'm saying this in a way that I don't mean disrespect to either franchise but like Portlandy like where it's like really cool to watch but like let's be honest this is a five or a six seed. It hits a wall at some point I think and it's just all of this idea of I say this so many times and people that I interact with if I've heard me say this a hundred times.

just about flexibility. And the thing is that, like, Steph's flexibility isn't as malleable as some of these players at the very top, like a LeBron type, who can really, really be a two-way anchor and be insanely flexible. And he's also playing with AD. But, I mean, and that's the gold standard there. It's just, like, do you have enough to, you're talking about the pace?

It forces them to be in a situation like that because of just super limited flexibility. Now, like, Steph has proven, I've heard a lot of people kind of have this conversation about like Steph being a floor raiser. I do think that he has like really, really put a lot of

credibility in his camp on that front. Like I think that he can elevate the warriors in a way that maybe people were skeptical about him in terms of a creator, like how much offense can feed off of him. But yeah, I do think that it kind of puts them in a situation where they're a little more Portland-y. it's just yeah and you're right on a given night yeah sure they can and that's what's going to make

that tournament so fun if it does happen is because his like one night variability there is so high man can you imagine like zion lucca and step in a tournament like that i mean that honest i was i was thinking about this that might be more exciting than a like a bucks jazz final you know what I mean, like, not no disrespect, but I just mean, like, having Zion, Luca and Steph in the play in tournament would be like, I mean, I think that, like, we've already heard Lucas start talking about, like, that's not really, this doesn't make any sense. We play 72 games so that we can play one game. It's not like that wasn't on the menu when you entered into the season. You should know that that was in the, in the cards, but it's, I think for a, the West is so

competitive. And I think that the Utah going to the top of the West kind of pushed every other team down a little bit. And you're just seeing that, like, you know, it's cutthroat there. And obviously, like, you know, there's another world in which it's like Memphis, San Antonio and Golden State or whoever. And it's like a little bit less maybe starstruck. But it's wild that, I was just going to say, it's wild that despite all of this hand-wringing and stuff, you know, there are three games back from Portland. There's six games back from the Lakers. It's just, despite all the carnage, it's like the, the, uh,

There could be a little bit of a shift here. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you know, I wouldn't wish this, but like Denver's going to have a harder time with games now. You know what I mean? AD is ready to come back but isn't back. You know, LeBron's not back yet. So it's, there could still be some, some real shifting around in the West.

I think that, um, the, the golden ticket for the Warriors was obviously the Weissman pick. Because that was the, that was obviously this sort of like ultimate payoff for the, losing Durant. That was like the compensation ultimately because they wound up trading Russell for that. And, you know, I think that there is a lot to like about Weissman. I'm curious whether or not, though, you feel like Weissman was the right pick for the Warriors and whether or not there was another guy in that first round, especially, obviously, who could have helped them this year and could have made them even a little bit more dangerous. Could have been maybe one of the fourth or fifth guy outside of the Clay Draymond, Steph, Troika,

who could have gotten them back into title contention. There's a lot to ask from a rookie. Yeah, title contention, I don't know. I mean, the two big ones, the guy that I penned way ahead of the draft, I even put this in the ringer draft guide, was the Warriors for Halliburton.

And you're going to hear every team. I think it's just because of how malleable and applicable Halliburton is to every situation, because it's like, okay, he can pass dribbled shoot, and he's super efficient. Okay, he can play on good teams. So he just is a plug-in, play type player. For me, he made sense because he, the types of players that elevated, and I don't

think that people give the Warriors, you know, supporting cast enough credit on this front, is that, like, this was such a miraculous moment in basketball history for a team to come together the way that it did because Iggy, you know, historically special, you know, you're talking about like the 14, 15, 16. Yeah. The title teams. You know, Duran was great, but it's just like, um, far be from me downplayed Durant. But I mean, like Sean Livingston's special player, even for him to be in that situation, having been a guy that could have been a star ending up in this situation where he was probably overqualified in terms of his skill and his, he just, anyway, and Iguodala, just all those guys, I feel like deserve a little bit more credit. But Halliburton fit that mold to me as a guy who

didn't need the ball, but could give you maximum good decision making in his limited role. And I think that that's what the warriors are lacking. They just don't have a ton of those guys. And I think that they've banked on, they've banked on their culture upping those guys. To me, that's what culture is. Less play style, more polite principles of like how we guard, how we develop, how we work, things like that. Play style can change. But I mean, Lamello is the other huge one. I mean, Lamello has been better even, I thought that he was the most talented guy in the draft, but he's even, he's been better sooner than I thought he would have been. Would he've worked on the Warriors? I think so. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't think that Lamello.

I mean, that's a stupid question. because watching Lamello, you're just like, that sounds like taking acid to imagine him on the Warriors. It was amazing, but like, yeah, I'm just curious whether or not, like, I mean, and there's been some, some reporting of, like, sources say

and that there was, like, disagreements in the Warriors' front office about, like, who wanted Wiseman and who wanted Lamello and whether or not, like, that's going to be something that they regret. I mean, do you think a Lamello Warriors, if, like, a healthy Lamello Warriors this season is, what's their ceiling?

I mean, it's, I think it's probably, If you imagine, like, Clay, Lamello, Steph on the floor together, that absolutely works. And then you think about there's less playmaking pressure on Draymond in that, in that like fulcrum position that he's in where he like catches a ball, sets a screen, Steph relocates, things like that. Like there's a left, you just, you're injecting an insane amount of playmaking. And he's a better shooter than I thought, than I think we all thought that he would be. He's worked on that front.

In terms of how good they would be, I don't know that it would shift them in terms of if everybody's healthy, I don't know, you're putting me in the position to just guess, they still wouldn't be better than the Lakers.

I don't, you know, they wouldn't be better than full strength, nuggets, even, the jazz. But they would be in a position

where they'd have a player on a good, on a decent contract at a good price, and that would be really enticing if you have that much playmaking, that much creation on a roster.

If you were a good player that wanted to win a title, they'd be like one piece away. I think that that would be attractive on that front. So it'd be a better situation, I think. Let's take a step back and just kind of think about where Steph is at this point in his career and where he goes from here.

And this goes outside of what somebody's stealing, what somebody's floor, or like, do you think the Warriors can be the three seed next year if everybody's healthy or whatever? I was trying to think of what Steph's like trajectory sort of reminds me of. And obviously his style of play, his career is in many ways, like unlike anything we've ever seen. But I wonder whether or not, you know, we'll look. back on his career, albeit one with three rings and five finals appearances already. And think of him a little bit more like, not like in terms of his achievements, but in terms of like the way he operated within league is like a Dirk or a Duncan in terms of like a one team franchise legend,

you know, and he's always already, I think he's become, he's the Warriors all time score now. He's synonymous with Warriors basketball in some ways, you know, I mean, in all ways. And there was like, at the worst of times this season, I think I remember seeing some photoshopps of him in a Lakers jersey and that he hadn't signed some extension and that this is going to have, you know,

we have to start talking about whether Steph should move on or whatever. It's kind of inconceivable to me, but, you know, it was inconceivable to me almost every step of LeBron's career up until going to the Lakers was inconceivable. So I'm not going to be fooled by it. Do you think that Steph and the Warriors

is just going to be, that's just going to be the way we experienced him his entire career is like him being almost as one with the franchise? It seems like it. I mean, everything that I've ever read has just been him talking about over and over again. I don't go back to North Carolina unless I'm seeing family or I'm playing the Hornets basically. And another thing is just I've never really, no, Steph is like intensely competitive, obviously. You have to be at that level. You know, he's really driven. but Steph has never really struck me as having the same kind of unrest in him that like Katie and LeBron, you know, he's never seemed as burdened by legacy. Maybe it's because he was, he came out of nowhere a little bit more. He isn't saddled with this like from high school, you have to live up to this thing in the same way that, in the same way that LeBron was and the same way that Katie was.

You know, Katie seemed cursed by it at times. Like when you're just listening to him, like he's, I don't know, but I've never gotten that impression from Steph. So, I mean, he's, I expect him to be a monogamous player with the Warriors. I think he's, he's a one-team man and understandably. I mean, and he's, he just seems more at peace than those guys, too, because he's won. And that is another thing. Maybe if he had struggled to win and maybe that would have changed. Yeah, I definitely think that if he was, if they had not won a championship somehow or Duran

had never come to the Warriors. a lot of what ifs involved in this. But if Steph didn't have a ring but was still playing the way he plays, I think that he would be the number one person being like, we need to get Steph to a team that's going to win. You know what I mean? Like there would just be such an active fake trade market for Steph. And people basically advocating for Steph to agitate his way out of Golden State.

But as it is, like, you know, I mean, he's essentially closer to Duncan than he is to LeBron, I think. Yeah. And you mentioned Dirk, too. I think that aside from the fact that, you know, he is sort of a throwback. And he's an NBA legacy. He's a legacy kid. I mean, his dad was a life for an NBA. So I'm, I don't know how much that speaks to his, you know, wisdom and sort of the big board and how to, you know, he's got, he's always had, you know, good people around him,

I guess, like counseling him on what he should value. I'm speculating on all that stuff. But I think that, like, Steph's legacy as a player goes beyond that, I think. In the, in the sense that, Like we've had some sort of like emulative like major moments in basketball. Like, you know, when Elgin Baylor died, I started thinking about that. Like this guy influenced every scoring wing that came after him. And then like magic and MJ obviously. And then you get into like, Dirk was a big like, okay, you can play this way. Steph is one of those on a short list of players who I was joking about him being the

Herald for a movement that's coming. I mean, like I think that's going to be a big part of what's coming because he's, you know, I always say he's the reload relo god like he basically took relocation shooting to another level what's possible so I don't know he seems like a content guy but I don't know I hope I personally would like to see him go out

he's got it all he contributed he's got rings and he's also changed the way basketball is played so I mean congratulations are going to the Hall of Fame like you're just that's done yeah and to me it's like I think that the MVP conversation this year's been a little tweaked like it's it just seems like it started super early. It seems like it's gone from being like this MB LeBron argument to like now like how many,

like it basically like an appearances argument. Like are you now it seems like Yokic is like standout favorite but really only because he hasn't missed any time, I guess. We disagree on that, I think. Well, I think you'll be. You said that last time I was on here. I'm saying that also is from a Philadelphia perspective. But I think like, clearly.

You know, in terms of recency, man, like, I think you could make an argument for Steph even though the team isn't that good. Yeah, I mean, like we, I think we said, I always thought it was Yocaturing B. The LeBron thing, I was just like, get, get out of here with that. I never, I never thought it was, I have utmost respect for LeBron.

But I thought, Steph, we just do this thing where we don't want to give it to a team that's middling or, you know, and sort of like the thing where people would argue, like, oh, actually, Andre Carolenko is the MVP. Let me just be like, mm, come on. That should be the next episode of the answer is how Andre Carolinko got robbed of a bunch of MVP votes.

An Andre Carolinko video is in my future. It's going to happen. It's going to do minimal views, but it's going to happen. I'm a big truther on his front. But I mean, steps, I was talking about like Stefan Draymond being an offensive binary star. I mean, you go and you look at the top of the league in terms of like 400 minute. I'm holding up my ledger here. I was just people that I was kidding about using an actual ledger for my note. I am. In the top five of like minimum 400 minute. players in the league. Steph and Draymond are both in the top five.

So they're two-man, Steph is plus 15.3, which is bonkers. That's up there, like Embed and LeBroner up there. And then Draymond is 13.5. So it's the only thing that works and is dependable, their relationship on court. So I hope we get to keep watching it for years to come. Honestly,

I hope they don't break those guys up. Kyle, thanks so much for joining me today. I think that we figured out that we both love Steph Curry, and that's the important thing. Stay tuned to the rear NBA show all week. week. We've got a bunch of great stuff. Real ones. Group chat. Um, Ringer MBA University, I believe, is next week. It is. Uh, and then we've also got the answer next week. You can also tune into the mismatch twice a week and Bill and Rissolo are doing their thing. Plus, New York, New York. You're going to get

some Knicks talk from JJ. Uh, thanks so much for listening. We'll catch you next week.