Who Has the Better Streetball Recipe: Chef Curry or Chef Harden?

How do you prefer your NBA chef: bearded or baby-faced?

The answer might depend on the venue.

On the hardwood, Stephen Curry and James Harden turned as many heads as anyone during the 2014-15 campaign. Curry earned MVP honors while guiding the Golden State Warriors to a franchise-record 67 wins and helping snap their 40-year championship drought. Harden finished second in the MVP voting, leading the Houston Rockets to 56 victories and their first Western Conference Finals berth since 1997.

With their rivalry shifting back to center stage on Friday—the Rockets host the Warriors at 9:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)—they'll spark several debates about who's the better scorer, offensive weapon and leader.

But we're asking a different question: Who would make the better streetballer?

To find that answer, we ran a fine-tooth comb across the stat sheet, fired up the highlight reels and utilized the eye test. To shed more light on this, we also linked up with a trio of blacktop legends: former AND1 star Dennis "Spyda" Chism, New York City playground icon and NBA halftime performer Jack "Black Jack" Ryan and former AND1 star and current trainer Patrick "Pat The Roc" Robinson.

Chef Curry's Key Ingredients

"In streetball, you've got tons of people watching, and they want to see a show," Ryan said. "That's Steph. He's gonna kill it. The way he creates, the way he dribbles the basketball, draining 30-footers, they're gonna love him."

Streetballers play the same sport as their NBA brethren, but it's not the same game. It's about more than getting buckets and winning games, though those are still the ultimate goals. There's an added responsibility of keeping fans entertained throughout the process.

It's a game Curry was born to play.

His shooting alone puts fans at the edge of their seats. He's the best quantity-plus-quality sniper the league has ever seen. He has twice set the single-season record for made triples (first with 272 in 2012-13, then 286 last year), and his career conversion rate is the third-highest in NBA history (44.04).

Granted, no one is coming to the blacktop to read a box score, but those numbers are important.

They highlight how quickly the Human Torch can ignite, dazzling the spectators with a flurry of long-range bombs. Plus, his triples tend to feature more flair than most. He's so comfortable at creating the looks for himself (he hit 42.5 percent of his pull-up threes last season), that he's someone fans can never take their eyes off of.

"That's a dangerous combo he's got going on: a nice shot, being able to handle the rock like that and get people involved," Chism said.

Category	Statistic	NBA Rank
Points Per Game	23.8	Sixth
Assists Per Game	7.7	Sixth
Three-Point Field Goals	286	First
Three-Point Percentage	44.3	Third
Player Efficiency Rating	28.0	Third
Box Plus-Minus	9.9	Second

There's electricity in everything Curry does.

His handles are tight and creative, "probably the best in the NBA to me, between him and Kyrie [Irving]," Robinson said. And Curry moves with purpose. When he dribbled seven-plus times before shooting last season, he hit 49.5 percent of his field goals and 51.1 percent of his threes.

The show doesn't stop when he steps inside the arc.

His touch around the basket is incredible to see. He's only 6'3", and his legs aren't spring-loaded with explosiveness. And yet, he shot a blistering 66.5 percent inside the restricted area last season, 17th-highest in the league (minimum 250 attempts). His ability to navigate between the 7-foot trees and toss scoop shots over them is sure to score major points with the streetball crowd.

The fact that Curry looks "like a school kid that nobody can guard," as Chism put it, would only make him more of a fan favorite.

The asphalt kitchen wouldn't prove too hot for Chef Curry. Of course, his culinary contemporary could say the same thing. 

Chef Harden's Key Ingredients

"James Harden is a straight Rucker Park, 'I'm gonna use this whole game to one-on-one and score 80 on you,'" Chism said.

Harden is more about substance than style, which admittedly isn't easy to write about when someone has recognizable facial hair and a Kardashian girlfriend. But inside the lines, he routinely trades glitz and glamour for brute force and analytically-based production.

Putting Harden on the playground means denying him one of his greatest weapons: free throws. He's paced the league in charity-stripe trips in two of the past three seasons, and last year, he made more freebies (715) than anyone else attempted (654, Russell Westbrook).

If Harden searches for calls in this setting, he'll never find what he's after.

"In streetball, you get a lot of fouls and you've got to play through it," Robinson said.

But Harden is a 6'5", 220-pound package of quickness, athleticism and ingenuity. He has a slew of offensive tools that don't involve the referee's whistle.

He can do damage beyond the arc (career 36.9 three-point percentage) and wreak havoc around the rim (633 points on drives last season, most in the league). If needed, he can survive off the ball as both a spot-up sniper and a rim-rocking cutter.

But the Beard's best work comes with the rock in his hands. No matter if he attacks his defender quickly or methodically makes his move, he's proved to be one of the league's most potent scorers.

Dribbles	FGM	FGA	FG%	3PM	3PA	3P%
0	141	319	44.2	96	238	40.3
1	65	137	47.4	20	58	34.5
2	63	141	44.7	11	35	31.4
3-6	189	422	44.8	42	105	40.0
7+	179	424	42.2	37	111	33.3

He's swift, strong and slippery, which is another way of saying he's a nightmare individual matchup.

He possesses a step-back jumper good enough for Rockets teammate Dwight Howard to christen him as "The Step Daddy." Harden is a clever playmaker who's dropped the 10th-most dimes since the start of the 2012-13 campaign (1,472). He's a more exciting, explosive dunk artist than he's given credit for.

But there's one move in his arsenal that stands out to streetballers.

"One thing in particular I like with him is his [Eurostep]," Robinson said. "It's not the fact that he's doing a Euro, it's that people know he's doing a Euro and he still does it—and it still works.

"... That's when you know that this player is special. Guys are trying to stop that move, and they're still doing it like nobody knew about it. When you can do that, that's big."

This all circles back to a central aspect of Harden's game, one that serves him well on the NBA floor and would be his biggest asset at the park.

"His toughness," Robinson said. "That grit, that hardcore street side, James is going to give you that aspect of it."

Even with defenders draped on Harden, he'd get his numbers.

But the show is just as important as the outcome in street hoops. And the Beard isn't the flashiest cook in this kitchen.

And the Top Streetball Chef Is... 

Ben Margot/Associated Press

All three streetballers were asked which of these superstars would be the better blacktop player. All three made the same selection: Curry.

"It's cool to be able to get a couple moves off in the first and second quarters, but fourth quarter you don't want to peep the fans walking out, because they came to be entertained," Robinson said. "That's the type of player Steph is—he entertains the whole game."

That's no slight on Harden. Neither player would be expected to struggle in streetball, though, as Chism noted; they'd both walk in with "an X on their backs."

But, again, the best streetballers are artists. There's more to their work than the final product. The show is important.

And there isn't a better showman in basketball at the moment than Curry.

"You don't know what he's going to do," Ryan said. "He can go to the hole, he's got that high bank shot over 7-footers, but he's also going to hit a 30-footer on you. The show is Steph."

NBA fans cast their vote last season. Curry topped all players in All-Star votes and jersey sales. His popularity would at least remain as high on the asphalt.

So, if an NBA superstar is serving up your next streetball dish, opt for the baby-faced one. Average Joes and experts agree—it's the best one around.

All quotes obtained firsthand. Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.

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