I’m studying Stephen Curry’s game for as long as we’re graced with its presence. It’s difficult to talk about Curry because every sentence is weighted with the worry that his ankle will melt into the Oracle floorboards. He’s here right now, though not quite shooting at his formerly high levels.
It could all be much ado about small sample size, but I find Curry’s shooting drop (he’s currently .418 from the field) to be interesting because you can’t totally blame a different style of play. Steph is out there looking like Steph, albeit not quite as mobile as he was in the Don Nelson days.
A big reason for the shooting downturn from past years of .551 eFG% and .583 eFG% can be viewed in one, contiguous part of the floor. Behold the red color along the baseline:
On two-point shots in the baseline area, Stephen Curry has been a bizarre six of twenty seven, good for 22%. In Curry’s last two seasons combined, he shot over 46% from this area. If Steph managed his usual accuracy on baseline twos, he’d be between 44%-45% from the field overall in 2013. That doesn’t get him quite back at his old shooting levels, but Curry’s also depressing his aggregate field goal percentage by taking more threes (not a bad thing, necessarily) and shooting slightly worse at the rim.
We’re talking about a dozen or so extra misses here, which should indicate that the sample size is small. I just find Steph’s inaccuracy from the baseline area to be intriguing. Is he practicing the shot less? Does stopping to shoot in that area require lateral ankle duress?
It probably means nothing, but it’s a development worth monitoring. For now, Curry’s baseline woes just make for a curious splash of red on his shotchart.