Different Leadership Styles, but Stephen Curry and Chris Paul Both NBA Elite
Chris Paul is a throwback to the class of point guards left largely in the basketball history books with the kind of wisdom that suggests he just may have shared the floor with those all-time greats.
Stephen Curry embodies the changing face of the position, a gem for the analytical movement that preaches the importance of the three-point shot.
Both players take a dramatically different approach to the game, but both enter the 2013-14 season amid the steady stream of parallels that run between them. Two dynamic point guards, each a card-carrying member of the NBA's elite desperate to lead his respective Pacific Division power to basketball's greatest summit.
The challenge is the same on either side of this budding rivalry, but the path that lies ahead travels in near opposite directions. Even though the final destination remains the same.
Contrasting Styles
For every zig in Paul's deep bag of basketball tricks, Curry has a zag that keeps the scoreboard spinning just the same.
Paul's the ultimate team leader, as polished a player as you'll find at the position today. It's been that way ever since he was holding court for two seasons under the guiding hands of the late Skip Prosser during two seasons at Wake Forest University.
His tangibles (lightning quickness, silky smooth agility) tantalized. His intangibles (leadership, decision-making, genius-level basketball IQ) intoxicated. He wasn't just NBA-ready, he was All-NBA-ready, long before the signature sneakers and lucrative discovery of a long-lost twin.
His stat sheets are deceptive. One look at his career averages (18.6 points and 9.8 assists) and you're almost fooled into thinking his passing is the most deadly weapon in his offensive arsenal.
But try telling that to Curry's Warriors, who endured all 37 minutes of Paul's 42-point eruption Thursday night. Paul still involved his teammates (15 assists), but his shot was the one Golden State could never stop.
It reeks of hyperbole, but it's simply a fact—Paul has everything you could ask for in a point guard and then some.
His dizzying array of dribble moves leaves him always within striking distance. He can finish drives at the rim, but his best work starts out on the perimeter.
Once he calls for a screen out on the top, defenses rush to counter the set. But the trap's already in place; there is no right way to defend it.
Forget what Blake Griffin said, "Lob City" will be alive and well until Paul leaves the Staples Center for the final time. If he's not looking over the top—or defenses react to deny that option—he'll survey for the next weak link in the defense. It might be a driving lane, enough room to set his sights near the free-throw line or even a kick-out to his cavalry of shooters on the wing.
Whatever the right read is, Paul's going to make it. Every single time.
Curry's a different kind of beast for defenses to handle.
His stat sheet puts him as Paul's polar opposite (career 19.2 points and 6.1 assists), far more scorer than setup artist.
There's some truth to that, but some trickery in the numbers, too.
Curry's best weapon is absolutely his three-point canon, no doubt a family heirloom passed down from his father (Dell Curry shot 40.2 percent from deep over his 16 NBA seasons). We've seen players with in-the-gym range before, but this one challenges the limits of even those dimensions.
He's an off-the-bus shooter who can literally hit from anywhere.
If not for a dry night from Splash Brother backcourt mate Klay Thompson (10 points, 3-of-7 from the field), Curry's long-range gifts (9-of-14 from deep) could have brought the Warriors their second-straight division win to start the season.
He's not just a shooter, though, or at least doesn't fit the traditional measure of the label. His teardrop floaters are just as hard to stop as his rapid-fire triples. His passes have the creativity of Steve Nash and the flair of Magic Johnson.
Curry's also not Paul, not from the tactical execution standpoint. While CP3 systematically carved up the Warriors' defense, Curry struggled staying out of his own way. He had 11 turnovers in 38 minutes, seemingly facing problems whenever he opted against firing from distance.
But how many players can stumble through an 11-turnover night and still emerge at the other end with 38 points and nine assists? Between Thompson's relative silence (he scored 38 in the season opener) and Golden State's struggles on the glass (the Warriors were outrebounded 44-33), the Warriors, as coach Mark Jackson told Marcus Thompson II of the Contra Costa Times, "had no business [being] in this game."
Yet that's the kind of difference a dynamic star like Curry can make. Even if his explosive counterpart would have gone about it in a different way.
Leadership Roles
Curry and Paul were forged on different ends of the basketball world.
Curry emerged from hoops obscurity, a shining star from an otherwise barren sky. While building his brand during three seasons of collegiate ball, he also had the seemingly impossible task of putting the entire Davidson College program on the map.
Paul traveled down the NBA pipeline better known as the ACC. His exposure to elite-level talent only validated his already-glowing scouting reports.
Both players have been floating in NBA waters for a while now, but the lessons learned from their collegiate days are evident.
Curry's Warriors play with a why-not-us approach. Never mind that Golden State's struggled just to be considered an afterthought over the past two decades. This team has left the past in the past.
Curry's green light never flashes or flickers. Whether he's two feet or 28 feet from the basket, it doesn't matter. His courage to take and ability to make those shots instills confidence in his teammates.
He's the friendliest face among basketball's best buddies. The Warriors have a chemistry that's impossible to measure, and those genuinely high spirits fuel this franchise's fire.
It keeps Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala ferociously engaged at the defensive end no matter how many touches they get on the other side. It allows Thompson to keep fighting when he sees just seven shots in 38 minutes less than 24 hours after hitting 15-of-19 in just 31 minutes of work.
Curry had to believe in himself to complete that improbable journey from the Southern Conference to the NBA. Now that he's arrived, he's extended that self-trust to his teammates and formed a legitimate title contender in the process.
For Paul, basketball's always been a business. Not in the sense of creating a financial empire, but in the way that every second of every practice matters.
He doesn't bite his tongue when teammates slip up. The expectation level he places on them, though, doesn't compare to the one he gives himself.
He's a no-nonsense player, and the perfect man to implement new Clippers coach Doc Rivers' system. LA can piece together some ludicrous stat lines, but like Rivers told Paul, via Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, individual stats mean nothing:
"The first meeting I had with Doc, he pretty much told me I wasn't anything. He told me I hadn't done anything in this league, and he was right. You don't always want somebody that's going to tell you what you want to hear.
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How many NBA players would be willing to listen to that message? These are people who were long ago tabbed for greatness, and surely reminded of that fact by each person they came in contact with.
Paul's not just an NBA player, though. He's a six-time All-Star selection with five appearances each on the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams.
Postseason success might be lacking from his resume, but so too is time spent with a team capable of making playoff noise.
Yet, he's not making any excuses. Not for himself, nor for his teammates.
He's just playing with a purpose and making sure the rest of his team follows suit. The Clippers can enjoy that camaraderie another time; right now there's work to be done.
Similarities
For everything that's different about these players, so much is the same.
The importance to their respective franchises, the championship dreams and even the bloated box scores, it's all there.
The one remarkable characteristic that each player shares is that they have complete control of their locker rooms. Both lead by example, both have their teams set up for prolonged postseason goals.
He might not do it every night, but Paul can torch the scoreboard with every searing degree of Curry's fiery outbursts. While he won't be joining Paul in the race for an assist crown, Curry can thread needles just the same.
These are two tremendous players at the top of their games, ready to bring their clubs to that exclusive, elite stage along with them.
The battles between the Clippers and Warriors will be enthralling. The possibility of a postseason meeting is almost a sensory overload for true hoops heads.
I'm just glad that we'll all be along for the ride. It promises to be an unforgettable experience
