When he retires, the analytics community will scream from the rooftops that he is top-5 all-time. He will likely be voted into the top-10 by conventional media. But the gap between those two numbers—between the 5th best player and the 10th best player—is the story of Stephen Curry.
Stephen Curry has a legitimate argument for three Finals MVPs (2015, 2022, and 2017 if you value gravity over raw scoring). He has zero, because the award measures the box score, not the fear he instills. Part V: Longevity vs. Peak One of the quiet arguments against Curry is that his "peak" was shorter than LeBron’s or Jordan’s. He didn’t start dominating until age 26. He had injury-plagued seasons.
Consider the 2022 NBA Finals. The Boston Celtics had the number one defense in the league. They had length, switchability, and athleticism. In Game 4, with the Warriors down 2-1 and the dynasty teetering, Curry delivered one of the greatest "system-breaking" games in history: 43 points, 10 rebounds. It was not movement. It was not screens. It was pure, isolated, "give me the ball and get out of the way" creation. Stephen Curry- Underrated
Because he isn't screaming and flexing, we assume he isn't trying. This is the quiet disrespect that follows him everywhere. Here is the final, uncomfortable truth. When the history of basketball is written in 50 years, they will not rank players by "rings" or "MVPs" the way we do now. They will rank them by inflection points —moments where the sport changed direction.
He proved he could be the iso-heavy, heliocentric star. But because he rarely chooses to play that way—because he prefers the system—we hold it against him. We penalize him for being unselfish. When he retires, the analytics community will scream
Final thought: The next time someone tells you Stephen Curry is "only" the 12th best player ever, ask them one question: "Name the five players in history you would draft ahead of him to win a Game 7 tomorrow." If they don't hesitate, they haven't been watching.
It was not an outlier. It was a revolution. Stephen Curry has a legitimate argument for three
That is the "Curry Gravity"—a phenomenon that has no statistical box. It is the panic in a defense’s eyes. Because it is invisible to the standard box score, we chronically undervalue it. For the first half of his career, a loud contingent argued that Curry was a product of the "Warriors system." The discourse went like this: Put him on the Charlotte Bobcats and he’s just a rich man’s J.J. Redick.