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Our friends (yes, we consider them friends) over at Rush the Court had a great article on Sunday poring over and breaking down Steph Curry's numbers over the last two-and-a-half seasons. They came up with these numbers:
The first chart shows Curry's career numbers against four different levels of competition. Notice the drop off against the BCS+Gonzaga.
This chart shows his performance against the BCS+Gonzaga in a year-by-year breakdown.
This is how they interpreted the numbers:
Although Curry is still able to get his against quality competition (25.7 PPG in BCS + Gonzaga compared to 24.2 PPG versus all other teams), he becomes significantly less efficient in doing so. His field goal percentage drops from 49.1 percent against non-BCS competition to 40.4 percent against BCS-level competition. The numbers become even more interesting when you look at Stephen’s numbers year-by-year against BCS-level competition.
While Stephen has been able to continue to increase his scoring against BCS-level teams each year, his field goal percentage has dropped precipitously this year. This could merely be the result of a couple of off shooting nights (even MJ had his bad games), but it is more likely related to the increased load being placed on Curry as the team’s new point guard with the departure of Jason Richards, who led the nation in assists per game last year. However, despite having Richards shouldering the ball-handling load last year, Curry’s shooting percentage was significantly lower in BCS games than it was in his games against non-BCS games.
What does all this mean? Aside from the obvious, that BCS teams are better than non-BCS teams, it raises the interesting (and controversial) argument that Stephen Curry may not be good as the hype suggests. He is certainly capable of putting up big numbers, but so were many other great college players who never were able to translate their game to the NBA.
Now if you read this blog, you know we enjoy stats and number crunching, but only to a certain extent. We've said this before, but at some point you need to actually watch the games and the players to see what is really happening.
Back to the point: I don't want to say the guys at RTC are wrong for questioning Curry, but, well, maybe I am. Hear me out.
11 comments Last one added 6 months ago — Leave a Comment
Jameson Fleming 6 months ago
I'm just going to copy/paste my comment from when this was on RtC onto here:
To be fair to Stephen, this year he doesn’t really have another stud scorer/distributor on the team. Davidson lost its second, third, and fourth leading scorer to graduation. He’s try to shoulder the load which to me is what is causing the drop off.
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Rob Dauster 6 months ago
That's pretty much exactly what I was getting at.
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Jameson Fleming 6 months ago
Is this the same article posted at RtC or did you write your own version?
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Joe G 6 months ago
Good arguments in favor of Curry. You nailed it when you said that against lower-caliber schools, Curry's teammates become a threat. He's ALWAYS dangerous, but against a team like Purdue, his teammates will have to step up as well as him, and they just don't have the depth of the BCS schools. Curry is one of the best players in the country, but it means nothing without a good supporting cast.
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Rob Dauster 6 months ago
My own. Ha I do that a lot.
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Jameson Fleming 6 months ago
Whoops. Well my comment doesn't pertain to you. After reading this piece, I agree!
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L.J. Burgess 6 months ago
People can't just live in the moment and enjoy him for what he is...CAN THEY.
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Dave Finocchio 6 months ago
Yes, he's overrated as an NBA prospect. From a value standpoint, he's a mid to late first round draft pick, not a top 5 pick as predicted by many "experts."
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Elizabeth Carlton 6 months ago
OK... Here we go... Time to take down Steph. It was bound to happen. Although I do appreciate the fact that , Rob , you did write a very respectful article with good analysis of the stats.
Don't forget that one of the reasons Steph's numbers are a bit down this season is that Loyola's coach decided to forfeit a game against Davidson by double teaming Steph the entire game in order to hold him scoreless. Stephen, after realizing what was going on, just took those 2 players to the corner and let the rest of the team play 4 on 3 and trample them. Also, there have been a couple of other games where Stephen did not have to score big for Davidson to win. He is a true team player and is happy to dish out to Archimbault or in to Lovedale for points. It is early yet. I predict he will have several more 40 plus point games this season.
McKillop is no dummy. He knows he has to DEVELOP his players over time because he doesn't get the big talents out of high school. He cobbles together guys that are overlooked by the big schools and makes them improve over time . NOTE: Jason Richards hardly played his first 2 seasons at Davidson and went on to become one of the finest point guards in the country. He must be a very patient man, but it has paid off. As you pointed out, none of the big schools wanted Steph. Va. Tech said they'd take him as a walk on and then red shirt him the first year. Steph passed and McKillop grabbed him. Good snag.
You may be right in your assessment that Stephen is not a true point guard. I agree that he is more of a shooting guard. But he has performed pretty well at point this year. The funny thing is that we have such high expectations of Stephen that when he scores 29 points, has 9 assists and 7 rebounds we consider that an off night!
People love to talk about how awful the rest of the team is (even Lebron) but I am optimistic and expect players like Ben Allison and yes young Brendan McKillop to develop into quality players like Jason did. Will Archimbault has really improved this season and can be counted on for 3's.
McKillop realized that he had put too much on Stephen after the Purdue debacle. He is letting Max and Brendan bring the ball down the court more and more to give Stephen breathing room. Davidson, more so than other teams it seems, is still a work in progress at this point in the season.
Who would have thought early last January that Davidson would come within a breath of the final four in March?
Stephen is the real deal. About his future prospects in the pros... I don't pretend to know.
He is genuinely a great kid who loves his teammates, coach and fellow student/friends.
I personally think he is a basketball savant. and he's just so damn much fun to watch.
I'm hoping Duke comes in all cocky tomorrow night. Davidson loves being the underdog.
Good article.
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Andrew Mason 6 months ago
good article. When i clicked on it i expected like many other articles to be"he sucks!". however this was not the case and I was very surprised and really glad to see that. But my one counterpoint is it is much tougher for someone like him to be on Davidson where he is the only threat. Therefore when he plays the better teams they know he is the threat and if they can pressure him into the bad shots and mistakes the game will become a cakewalk. In any sport when you are the offense It almost seems like getting Davidson so far into the tourney while good intially has become death for stephen curry. He is no longer able to sneak up on teams and drop 30 points on them.
5 stars nevertheless!
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Chris Schei 6 months ago
Stephon Curry is Tyler Hansbrough. Great college player, not NBA player.
Curry will be a three point specialist in the NBA. And Tyler Hansbrough?
Can you say... Mark Madsen?
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jason hughes 6 months ago
stephon is exactly what he is as advertized, a pure shooter and will be a better nba player than a college player, as chris above already pointed out.Hansbrough might actually be a little productive, he is stronger than madsen and seems to be able to pop those mid jumpers quite easily, but the jury is out on him,he will get college basketball player of the year though.
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