As the haunting chants echoed through every foot of the Arena, the players sauntered out onto the court for one last goodbye.
Like gracious students at the retirement of their favorite teacher, the players began to clap, radiating emotion with each and every smack.
The circle began to grow, as coaches, trainers and cameras join the mass.
Just before Mark Jackson hands Steph Curry the microphone, David Lee spots Festus Ezeli wandering with uncertainty. Like a youngster at lunch with nowhere to sit, Lee points at Ezeli at invites him to the table.
Family.
“We just want to thank you guys for your continuing support all season.”
Curry’s voice quivers as the chants continue to ring out.
“You guys made Oracle Arena a great place to play, the energy, the passion you have for us, it’s unmatched across the league.”
Cameras move closer as they sense the rarity of such a moment.
“Obviously this didn’t end like we wanted it to, but all the hard work, and the foundation that we built this year, we’re going to keep growing, and get back to this level next year.”
The players raise their hands and applaud the sea of yellow still inside the arena.
Then, as if Chuck Lorre had scripted it himself, Curry invites Oracle into their huddle, for one last goodbye.
“When I say three, you say “just us,” as we break it down for the season.”
“One. Two. Three.”
“Just us.”
Players embrace as the fans cheer once again, thanking with applause for such an intimate invitation.
The court begins to clear as the enormity of the moment starts to sink in.
Oracle was not just an arena, it was home to a loud and passionate family who gathered twice a week to sit and drink and enjoy each other’s company.
But rather than feel sad that it has all come to and end, we’re cheerful. For the opportunity we had to spend so much time together.
Two times in 19 years. That’s life as a Warriors fan. Two playoff appearances since 1994.
When things take place that infrequently, it merits comparison between the episodes. Like Lindsay Lohan comparing those two times she’s been sober.
2007 and 2013. Two Warriors playoff teams. A team of choir boys. A team of bad boys. Two versions of Andris Biedrins.
The Good, The Bad And The Biedrins.
How different are these two teams? Let start at the top and make our way down.
The Owners:
One never talked or appeared in public. The other can’t shut up or stay out of the spotlight. Despite this, I’ll take Joe Lacob by 100 miles and running. He’s done an excellent job creating the foundation of a solid basketball operations team. The other owner let the inmates run the asylum and the top inmate valued “A Great Timeout” over “A Great Team.”
The Coaches:
I need to tell a story here.
I know someone who used to be a PR intern for the Warriors back in the Run TMC era. Part of his job was to go into both team’s locker rooms shortly before the start of each game to retrieve the starting lineups. For most teams, this meant walking into the locker room and finding the head coach, who was usually drawing up plays on the white board. The intern transcribed the starting five from the coach to then deliver to the official scorekeeper.
But with Don Nelson, the intern’s job was always an adventure. Most times, Nellie was drinking a beer, and conversationally yelling and cursing with his coaches and players. But on some occasions, notice I said “some” because this happened more than once, the intern would search the locker room only to be directed by the equipment manager to the exact whereabouts of Nelson.
The intern would follow the directions back into the bathroom, hesitating as he squealed, “Coach?”
“In here, young fella!” barked Nelson.
From inside the bathroom stall.
Seeing only his shoes and drawn down belt and trousers, each time the intern would back step while saying, “I can wait.”
Each time Nelson answered with, “No need. I got my five.”
Nelson would then rattle off his starting lineup while sitting on the toilet. He’d end it with, “Can you grab me a beer and slip it under the door before you go?”
Now, can you imagine Mark Jackson doing that? Pastor Jackson?
One coach was the yelling, cursing, drinking, starting-lineup-shit-taking rabble-rouser who couldn’t get along with some of his key players. Mainly because he couldn’t stop saying bad things about them. He also sported a messy look that was closer to a drunk exiting a pub around 2 a.m. than a dapper Pat Riley clone.
The other coach refuses to say a bad word about his players, refuses to say bad words in general, doesn’t drink, won’t yell, dresses sharp and oozes the cool, calm, collectedness of George Clooney at the Oscars.
The Players:
This is like the difference between Arthur and William’s two high school teams in Hoop Dreams. The public school versus the private school. The kids from the ‘hood versus the kids from the ‘burbs. The Jets and the Sharks. The Greasers and the Socs. Allen Iverson versus the Hampton Virginia Bowling Alley.
(say with Ice Cube accent) BD, Captain Jack, J-Rich, Big Al, Monta, Barnes.
(say with an Urkel accent) Steph, Plain Jack, David, Klay, Harrison, Andrew, Carl, Festus.
One group shot up strip clubs, bashed teammates, threatened police officers, got DUIs, who-rided mopeds and slept with Warriors employees.
The other group speaks politely, preaches against strip clubs, attends prayer meetings, reads books on the team plane, grew up in privileged households, got laughed at by math geeks and sleeps only with one girl at a time.
The dots, however, don’t align perfectly.
The bad boys had Adonal Foyle and Mickael Pietrus.
The choir boys have Jarrett Jack and Draymond Green. One of those guys was banging headboards in the room adjacent to Andrew Bogut on a recent road trip.
The Biedrins’:
What can you say here except one was good and one is bad. One had spikey hair and one has nerdy hair. One made earned decent money and one makes ridiculously amazing unearned money. Both miss free throws.
The Conclusion:
They’re like my kids. They are different in so many ways, but I love them both the same. Except Chris Cohan of course. That’s like if you had Damien for a kid. Send him to a foster home.
Steph Curry is one of the best shooters in the world. Warriors fans have known this since his rookie season and college basketball fans knew it back in March 2008, when Curry single-handedly took a ragtag group of scholars from Davidson College within inches of the Final Four. So his proficiency as a shot-maker this season shouldn’t surprise on the surface; as far as pure shooting goes, he’s been one of this game’s best for many years.
But even that doesn’t mean Curry’s amazing 2012-2013 is being given its proper due. For there’s an easy argument to be made that he’s enjoying the best year-long campaign ever when it comes to the combination of abundance and accuracy from long range.
After Saturday night’s 39-point virtuoso performance that saw him connect on seven of 12 attempts from beyond the arc, Curry’s hit an astounding 236 three-pointers this season. That mark leads the league by 37 triples and eclipses Golden State’s previous franchise best number – set by Dorell Wright in 2011 – by 42. Those feats impress without bounds considering there’s still eight games left in the regular season, and the sheer discrepancy between Curry’s numbers and those in second place makes it easy to think he must be on the verge of breaking the NBA’s all-time record for made threes in a season.
But you’d be wrong. At his current pace of 3.4 triples per game, Curry will end the season having made approximately 263 three-pointers. A historic accomplishment, no doubt, but one that falls short of Ray Allen’s record-setting performance of 269 threes set in 2006. Curry would trail Dennis Scott’s second-place single season mark in that scenario, too; Scott made 267 long-range baskets in 1996 for the Orlando Magic.
As with every raw total or per game statistic these days, though, Curry’s awesome season in relation to its past peers deserves more analytical scrutiny. A sheer number of three-point makes can’t be the only factor in measuring the historical significance of a player’s NBA calendar year; tangible context like attempts, percentage and type of shot is necessary here, just as intangible type like offensive role and quality of teammates is, too. And taking those components into account, it’s clear Curry’s 2013 deserves as much if not more acclaim than Allen’s 2006.
Below is a list of players that have made at least 230 threes in a season. It’s a short one, obviously, and Curry’s season-long total of 236 threes – with eight games remaining, mind you – ranks sixth among the eight players that have reached this hallowed threshold. That’s great, but doesn’t do his marvelous achievement justice. *Click to enlarge images.
Now let’s dig just a bit deeper, listing this esteemed octet from top to bottom by three-point percentage.
Curry’s alone at the top now, with nearly 1.5% percentage points separating him from second-place Peja Stojakovic. Anyone can bomb away from deep; what matters most is the efficiency at which one does. Curry, clearly, is a in a league of his own in that regard. Assuming he doesn’t significantly slump down the stretch, it’s safe to say Curry will have made at least the fourth most three-pointers ever in a single season and will have compiled the best percentage among that group while doing so, too. Not bad.
Taking that under consideration, Curry’s already had one of the best three-point shooting seasons ever. And once we dip farther below the archaic statistical surface, his prowess becomes even clearer.
Let’s pare this list down a bit more. Cutting the number of baskets off at Curry’s current total and establishing a floor of 41% from beyond the arc – a clip which five of the original eight players reached – gets this catalogue of shooters down to four.
Impressively, Allen and Scott – the overall top two in terms of makes – remain, as do vintage Peja Stojakovic and Curry. But, as stated above, we need more context. Scott, as brilliant a marksmen as he was in 1996, was not the offensive focal point of his three peers. Just look at his number of field goal and free throw attempts; they pale in relation to Allen’s, Peja’s and Curry’s, while his 19.9 usage rate does, too. With sincere apologies, Scott’s falls just short of real consideration for best three-point shooting season ever.
While we’re here, let’s take Stojakovic out of the running, too. His usage falls more than two points shy of Curry’s and three of Allen’s, while the awesome success of that 2004 Kings offense works against him, too. Playing with offensive talents like Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, Bobby Jackson and the two-headed center monster of Vlade Divac/Brad Miller allowed made the burden placed on Stojakovic far less than that of Curry or Allen. Sacramento ranked second in the league with a 110.9 offensive rating in 2004, and while much of that is due to Peja’s extremely rare long-range success, all that ancillary offensive ability surrounding him made Stojakovic tougher for defenses to focus on. Bearing that in mind, he comes up bronze.
Now we’re down to the nitty-gritty. Fittingly, the record-setting Allen stands alone with Curry. How to decipher which shooter had the most impressive season from deep? There are many factors at play in support of both, many of which effectively cancel each other out. Number of makes will likely favor Allen at year’s end, percentage Curry by several points, while supporting cast (of lack thereof) strengthens Allen’s case, as well.
We’re really splitting hairs now, and whichever season one deems superior to the other can’t be met with much skepticism. These are the foremost three-point shooting campaigns ever; as the old adage goes, there is no loser. But there’s one more aspect that must be taken into account to properly pit the exploits of Curry and Allen against one another – percentage of makes assisted or unassisted.
In 2006, Allen was assisted on 75.1% of his three-pointers, meaning he made 24.9% of them off-the-dribble. Curry, meanwhile, gets just 62.3% of his triples via pass, while an astounding 37.7% come off the bounce. That’s a major difference in the vehicle behind all those baskets, and one that tips the scale significantly in Curry’s direction. When analyzing shooters and seasons of this magnitude that are so difficult to distinguish from the other, the difficulty of all those makes looms large. Connecting on some 250 three-pointers is hard enough; making hay with almost 40% of them unassisted is truly remarkable, and more than enough to offset the approximately 15 additional triples Allen’s 2006 will have on Curry by this season’s close.
So the next time Curry lines up an effortless shot from distance, know whether it hits or not that you’re watching history. Raw numbers and league-wide record books won’t show it, but in 2012-2013 Curry has nevertheless enjoyed the preeminent three-point shooting season of NBA annals.
*Statistical support for this piece provided by basketball-reference.com and NBA.com.
As many of you know, I am based out of Denver, Colorado. If it seems strange for a Warriors blog in San Francisco to welcome a writer who specializes in the Denver Nuggets to write a weekly feature, it is.
With that said, my readers in the Bay Area can take this week’s edition of Smooth’s Starting Five as a token of my appreciation for allowing me a seat at your table.
There’s not enough being said about the job Mark Jackson has done in Golden State.
There’s even less being said about the job Rick Carlisle is doing in Dallas.
Do the Warriors have the best fans in the NBA and what kind of home court advantage should be expected in the playoffs?
If the playoffs started today, the Nuggets and Warriors would meet in the first round. Who ya got?
With increased health would come an increased role for Steph Curry this season, and with shouldering a bigger offensive load – in most cases, at least – comes a drop in efficiency.
It makes sense. Shot creation is a skill, one that can be honed but something still closer to nature than nurture. So when a player is counted on to score more often than he has in the past, that naturally means he’ll be taking more difficult shots because he’s learning the nuanced, inconsistent art of “finding” a basket for himself as opposed to playing through offensive sets or his teammates. The same goes for players transitioning from playing more minutes off the ball to on it, a needed development for Curry this season without Monta Ellis at his side in the Warriors backcourt.
Basically, the more a player shoots, dribbles, or passes the ball the greater chance there is for him to make or be forced into a mistake. That’s why the guys that take on a bigger role without sacrificing efficiency are so few and far between, and why they rank as the game’s most effective offensive forces.
Curry isn’t the only young player in the league with more shot-creating and shot-making expectations heaped upon him this season. Paul George and Jrue Holiday are two notable examples of the many, and are experiencing a change in role similar to Curry’s in varying degrees. Predictably, they have produced different outcomes, too.
George was abysmal at the beginning of the season, trying to find his way as Indiana’s primary creator while Danny Granger was, and still is, sidelined with an injury. He shot 39.2% from the field in November and turned the ball over at an alarming rate, forcing Frank Vogel to design different ways for George to function as his team’s lead ballhandler in pick-and-roll situations. Since the change – mentioned here by Grantland’s Zach Lowe – he’s been much better, posting shooting numbers from all areas of the floor more closely aligned with his career norms while maintaing a usage rate far higher. So George, early bumps in the road not withstanding, is evolving as a first option and seems primed to get better.
Holiday, on the other hand, has been stellar from the get-go. Without Andre Iguodala to do the lion’s share of orchestrating this season, his burden was always going to be bigger; the question was whether or not he was ready for it or ever would be. Evidence gleaned from his first three years in the league gleaned an optimistically inconclusive answer, but with his play thus far Holiday’s put any concerns to rest. He’s currently setting career highs in points, shooting percentage, and free throw attempts all while nearly doubling (4.5 to 8.8) his assists per game mark from last year. Holiday, clearly, has the chops needed to be a team’s top creator and has shown it from the season’s opening tip.
George is coming around and Holiday never had to, but both now look locked in for the remainder of their careers as one of a team’s main offensive options. Curry, like Holiday, did for Golden State from the beginning of the season, but like George, experienced some growing pains, too.
Look at his November. Curry shot 43.0% from the field in the season’s opening month, hardly bad but not up to his career standard as a shooter, either. He was taking almsot four more shots per game than he did in 2011-2012 with a usage rate slightly higher as well, so it was easy to assume his relative struggles were a corollary of his expanded offensive role. And if that was indeed true it would have been disappointing. Curry’s November true shooting percentage of 57.1 still put him in the top 10 among point guards, but was firmly below his history-threatening career marks.
That’s changed now, of course, as even with a bigger burden Curry has maintained and begun to surpass the incredible shooting numbers that he’s compiled since his rookie season. Consider: Curry’s career percentages currently read 46.6% FG, 44.6% 3PT, 58.2% TS, marks that take his underwhelming start to 2012-2013 into account. He’s gone comparatively gangbusters to November since then, posting a crazy shooting line of 45.2% FG, 50.0% 3PT, 58.9% TS since December kicked off while taking 1.8 more shots per game and upping his usage rate.
More impressive? The numbers get better the closer we get to present day even as his shot attempts and usage rate have stayed on par. Since December 19th: 46.7% FG, 53.9% 3PT, 61.1 TS%. January: 48.3% FG, 55.3% 3PT, 61.8% TS.
Obviously, the small concerns over Curry’s start are a blip in the rearview mirror. It’s obvious now he’s the type of player that can not only handle but deserves carrying a team’s offensive weight, questions we weren’t sure the answers to before the season began. And considering the increased comfort he’s shown with his new role by the month begs a different one entirely: just how dominant can he eventually become?
Last season, I allowed my mind to wander off and was able to rationalize a basketball fantasy that became reality in the world of my NBA 2K11. With both Chris Paul and Dwight Howard set to become free agents in 2012, it made perfect sense that both players could potentially dictate their next destinations simply by putting in trade requests with their respective teams.
Mind you, before such demands could be made, both players would require a destination where they would not only have a great shot at building a winner from the ground up but also get the opportunity to revive a once great franchise with some of the best fans in the NBA.
If you’ve ever visited our site then you know how brutal our forums can be. Spirited debate, hate and love is spewed in the forums daily and no one is excused from being ripped. Back in 2007, Jim Barnett was doing Video Blogs for Warriors.com and in one of the videos he referenced the surf in Hawaii which caught the attention of some forum members. Forum members dissed Jim and lightheartedly made fun of his comments. A few days later, Barnett was on KNBR 680 and decided to address WarriorsWorld.net and its forums.
Listen Below:
Jim Barnett talking about WarriorsWorld.net circa 2007 by rasheed-1
How awesome is Jim Barnett for showing us love on-air? A while back he was a guest on WarriorsWorld TV, check it out
In the most recent installment of ESPN’s 5-on-5, the Warriors World bloggers as well some other prominent basketball contributors shared some thoughts on what to expect from the Golden State Warriors next season. The most important question that Dubs fans and players might want to be answered at the conclusion of the lockout is what to do with Monta Ellis.
There has been a growing sentiment in the basketball community that perhaps the Warriors would be better off if they were able to trade Ellis for quality performers or perhaps a stud player that fits better within the framework of the team. Darius Soriano of Forum Blue and Gold had this to share on the matter:
“Unless the Monta Ellis/Steph Curry combination morphs into the next John Stockton/Jeff Hornacek, Isiah Thomas/Joe Dumars or Dennis Johnson/Danny Ainge, I can’t endorse moving forward with a small backcourt as this team’s foundation. When you add in Ellis’ penchant for gunning, lackadaisical defense and how he impedes Curry’s growth, he’s got to go.”
In an effort to put his Ether stamp all over my Takeover (yes, that’s me in the video), Devin Kharpertian (huge Nas fan) of Nets Are Scorching offered this rebuttal to my stance on wanting to keep the Dubs guard in the Bay:
“Sorry, J.M., but historically successful teams are not often led by undersized, ball-dominant shooting guards with below-average efficiency. Monta is a workhorse, but he’s not winning any blue ribbons the way he plays now. I’m not buying the “different Monta” until I see it.”
And much like the public, the six bloggers called upon to answer the question were split on whether to trade the guard or keep him. Indeed, our very own Rasheed Malek, ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Palmer and I were all in agreement that Monta Ellis should remain a Warrior going into next season whereas Ethan Sherwood Strauss, Darius and Devin all agreed that it was time to in fact part ways.
I strongly suggest having a look at the rest of the piece; it provides some interesting insights on the perception of the Warriors going forward. The 5-on-5 roundtable can be found here.
Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them in the comments section or you can contact me by email at [email protected]. You can also find me on Twitter with the handle name @ShyneIV.
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