that basketball rim is awesome.

I'd imagine LeBron dribbles it up the court just as much as Kyrie. So both are affected by that. And watching the Cavs Kyrie is clearly the more ball dominant, his possessions are a lot of one on one where teammates don't touch the ball. LeBron may hold the ball, but teammates know they're goin to be involved. That was my main point, it's weird for TuT to say Kyrie is sick of standing around as LeBron holds the ball bc that's def more of a critique for Kyrie than LBJ.

I'd quibble with some of that, but as a response to TuT, I understand. However, the link does not show that, that's all.

KD is happy taking a subservient supplementary role next to someone who is having the best peak we've ever seen.

Next year steph will be 3/4 and 2016 was a completely undeserved 2 outer when he had a sprained mcl/acl. lebeta obv is 3/8 which is a drastically lower percentage.

let me know if steph ever sub tweets passive agressive estrogen filled rhetoric towards a team mate and i will be the first to call him a beta bitchmade disgrace like leloser objectively is.

OBJECTIVITY itt

actionjackson,

your frothing, misguided lebron takes aside, your rampant misogyny has got to stop.

steph the cuck

To survive today's NBA as a non-Warrior fan, you really have to be able to appreciate the little things. Little thing DELIVERED

Now let's trade Melo and FREE SUPER COOL BEAS!

Yea ok sorry I put that poorly. The actual peak Lebron years Cavs did obviously have some title equity. What I'm saying is that, if the best player ever* couldn't do it with a multiple attempts at a time when the league was quite soft (as you said, weakest winners in a decade), I don't think it's too much a stretch to say that, in general, one superstar teams aren't going to win rings, and so when comparing, say, Durant to Curry, who would carry a bunch of scrubs to more wins isn't really important, because neither is going to win the ring (Real Cavs might have had real title equity but hypothetical Curry Cavs or Durant Cavs obviously didn't IMO)

Re: Durant v Curry on 2013 Heat, I'll have a think a bit more about it. Maybe you're right and Durant would be better. My main point is that that sort of situation IS the kind of situation where it's important who would be better, because small differences can be worth big % in ring equity. I think we actually agree on this just spoke past each other a tad.

*I'm actually narrowly on the MJ side of MJ vs Lebron but I definitely think Lebron's more well rounded game makes him better suited to carrying a bunch of scrubs, so for this train of thought I'll call Lebron the best

Begs the obvious question. Can facts be misogynistic?

Yea I think its certain that the Warriors with Lebron/no Steph would be worse offensively at first. I think theres maybe like 10% equity they'd be better in the long run due to:

-Their improved D getting them more transition opportunities
-Getting other teams in foul trouble more often
-Lebron adapting in ways we didn't quite expect

But overall I agree with all those points and think the Steph version is probably better offensively.




This is a complete strawman argument imo. I don't know anyone who has changed their opinion on Durant vs Steph due to Durant having better offensive stats this past season. 2p2 consensus is that they are incredibly similarly valued offensive players(the debate would come probably down to how much you value Steph's spacing advantage versus Durant's advantage at getting a quality shot off in end-of-game iso sitautions) but that Durant's edge on defense makes him the better overall player.


Yes that is one fact about the situation. It gives us a small glimpse at the truth. There are also other facts such as:

-Steph Curry's only superstar teammate was Durant(a great teammate for superteams)
-Durant's only super teammate prior to Steph was Westbrook(a horrible superstar teammate)
-Lebron's 2 set of super teammates have been guys who don't work well in superteam settings


Using all of this information gives us a more complete picture.

Look, nobody is arguing that Steph isn't the GOAT offensive teammate for another superstar. But your grasping at straws trying to make it seem like Lebron or Durant are to blame for their poor fit on other teams. All 3 of them are GREAT fits on superteams.


I don't. Curry/Wade/Bosh plus role players is gonna be really bad defensively.

You're claiming you ignore box score stats and focus on team basketball, yet your analysis seems to be so focused on the offensive end. Steph is an average defender and can only guard one position. Durant is a great defender who can guard 4 positions and can help protect the rim.

IDK if Bosh/Wade is bad super team teammate but Wade is basically a better RWB with bigger injury issues--many of Wade/RWB issues stem from their inability to shoot jumpers/3s at a high efficiency level. Kyrie's issues stem from his poor D and over-reliance of his 1 on 1 ability which works well it times but liability a lot of the time.

But PG defense matters so much less, and you can still have the #1 defense ITL with Steph, so I don't think that argument matters as much as has been cited. What do you think of the following argument that I posted earlier?


I don't think the line has to be superteam, in terms of having other superstars, it just has to have other regular stars. For example, on the 2015 Warriors, if you replace Curry with Durant, which team would be better?

Curry/Klay/Iggy/Dray/Bogut
Livingston/Klay/Durant/Dray/Bogut

Or smaller units of:
Curry/Klay/Barnes/Iggy/Dray
Livingston/Klay/Iggy/Durant/Dray

I would say that the Curry team is better. The defense of 2015 Klay/Iggy/Dray/Bogut is just so filthy that I'd want Curry's offensive orchestration, shooting, gravity, spacing, etc. Basically, the defense is already so good that you want Curry's offense. The offense wouldn't be nearly as good with Durant.

And you're not just trading Curry for Durant, it's more like Curry+Iggy for Livingston+Durant, due to the lineups you would use for a large number of minutes. There's such a large dropoff in 3's from Curry+Iggy to Livingston+Durant, as well as ball movement, spacing, etc. And the defense is arguably not even any better, you're not really going from Curry to Durant on D, you're going from Curry to Livingston, and Iggy to Durant, which is arguably worse.

The above even applies to LeBron, if you switched Curry for LeBron on that team, I don't think the defense would improve as much as people have said earlier itt about a similar situation. The Warriors already had the #1 defense in the league, and as mentioned, Klay/Iggy/Dray/Bogut is fantastic defensively. Changing that to Klay/LeBron/Dray/Bogut doesn't move the needle as much as Curry+Iggy vs Livingston+LeBron moves the needle offensively, ball movement, 3's, spacing, etc.

why do u keep doin this? you're not isolating Steph vs Durant in these examples it's also Shaun Livingston vs Iguodala. Livingston is a nice role player, he's not Iggy.

We're reading different forums then apparently, but if that's been your opinion all along we'll leave that point alone.

You're looking at it far too binary-ly. It's not a case of 'fit' or 'dont fit'. "Fit" a continuous spectrum. You did the same thing with an earlier post. Check off a few boxes that makes you satisfied two players wont be disaster together, decide that's a sufficient 'fit', and then just call it a day. I'm not blaming Lebron or Durant for being poor fits I'm blaming them for not being as good a fit as Curry. All three of them might fit well on a superteam, but only Curry's value is actually enhanced on a super team. They all fit, he fits better.

Again, kinda binary "good" vs "not good" thinking IMO. You seem to be comparing the two, saying "both would have good offence so lets just go by defence", which just ignores the fact that two offences can both be very good and one can still be better by a significant amount. And it's nothing special about offence, that just happens to be because Curry is involved. If we were comparing say Draymond to someone in a hypothetical I could easily be going the other way (liking the super defensive option with a "bad" offence over the 'good offence good defence' team if I thought the first teams defensive edge was big enough).

Luke Babbitt to Atlanta

Yes, I'm intentionally doing that on purpose, that was part of the point! I agree that Durant > Curry in a vacuum. But basketball players don't live in vacuums. It's much more important to compare their effects on teams as a whole. The Livingston vs Iggy point was a previously undiscussed piece of the argument that is important to take note of when comparing Curry vs Durant on the Warriors.

For example, people were ignoring that when comparing LeBron replacing Curry on the Warriors as well. Some people were creaming themselves over LeBron's D, without examining exactly how much of an upgrade it is or not. They were acting as if you can directly compare Curry's D to LeBron's D and as if that gap is what matters. It is not.

The comparable lineups would likely be Curry/Klay/Iggy/Durant/Dray vs Livingston/Klay/LeBron/Durant/Dray. And then all the points I made above would apply. The defense would not necessarily be so much better with LeBron than the offense would be with Curry. This is a point that needs to be taken under consideration, not just "OMG 'dat LeBron D!"

And it's not just the Warriors, this type of effect would happen with several other good team constructions as well. Since Curry plays a different position than Durant/LeBron, it is more fair and more accurate to their effect on the team to compare the 1+3 vs other 1+3 under each scenario, since net team effect > player in isolation.

The giant basket at the end made me lose it.

Some heat on basketball Twitter regarding who is better between Jokic/Boogie*. Who you got?

*As usual it is turning into an us/them "analytics" debate

This one is not about analytics

One is a moron, the other isn't

Jokic at 21 miles ahead of Boogie at 21.

It's close for next year, but snapcalling Jokic even without factoring salaries going forward.

Uh, ok? So you're basically rewarding Curry in this conversation bc the backup SF/wing is way better than the backup PG on the specific team they play on? Do you not see how flawed that is? The original discussion was who was better, to which you turned into "well Curry is better on super teams", to which you turned into "well Curry is better on this specific super team where Durant's backup is way better than Curry's backup". But I think everyone accepts that Steph is more valuable to this specific team than Durant. That being true and Kevin Durant being a better & more valuable basketball player in general aren't mutually exclusive. I thought we were discussing the latter.