5 Reasons Stephen Curry Is Criminally Underrated

Effective Without The Ball

The reason the Golden State Warriors are my favorites to win it all is that you have to pick your poison with them. You want to slow down the game? They have the half-court offense to out-execute you and they’ve got the defense to stifle you on the other end. You want to push the tempo? They score the league’s most fast break points per game and like to play at a fast pace.

But what really makes them deadly is the Dubs are just as capable of beating you without the ball in Steph Curry’s hands as they are with it under his control.

Why? Well, unlike 99.9 percent of human beings on this planet, Curry needs a millisecond of time and an inch of space to get his shot off from anywhere on the floor. Not only is he capable of breaking his defender off with his dribble, but he’s also constantly moving without the ball.

After the Suns game last night, P.J. Tucker lamented how much the defense focused on trying to stop him, saying, “He’s got great guys screening for him and he’s never seen a shot that he doesn’t like, so when you play a guy like that as soon as he crosses half court he can make a shot.”

This means Kerr is wisely running sets for him that require help defenders to at least hedge and sometimes over-commit in order to prevent Curry from getting Curry an open look. It’s the same thing the Dubs do with Klay Thompson, only Curry might be more feared because even if you prevent him from getting that initial shot off, that usually involves a defender flying through the air at him, which leaves the D vulnerable to pump fakes and dribble penetration.

Take, for instance, what Doc Rivers did in Golden State’s game against the Clippers on Sunday. He double-teamed and triple-teamed the crap out of Curry every time he touched the ball. But Curry’s cohorts are far too skilled and far too intelligent to let that kind of game plan slow them down, and the role players exploited the defense.

Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut, Klay Thompson, Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes — they’re all playmakers who know how to make the right pass and are fully capable of making defenses pay for honing in on Curry.

More than likely, Curry’s insane ability to create space with the ball in his hands is going to help him get his. But even when the ball is not in his hands, defenses are trying so hard to stop him that Curry can often serve as a decoy, allowing his teammates to break the D down even further.

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