How Stephen Curry Can Cement Status as a Top-10 Player During 2014-15

Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors has emerged as one of the 10 best players in the NBA, but that placement isn’t cemented. He needs to deal with some holes in his game to retain that status. Anthony Davis is on the rise. Derrick Rose is coming back. Holding steady isn't sufficient. 

Ben Golliver and Rob Mahoney of Sports Illustrated released their list of the top 100 players, and Curry came in at No. 8. Adam Fromal of Bleacher Report ranked him No. 5. As more rankings are released, I believe the majority of them will have Curry in single digits.

In fact, his combination of shooting and passing makes him arguably the league’s third-best offensive player.

I can see people making a case for James Harden, Chris Paul or Carmelo Anthony. Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love are up there, too. If Derrick Rose and/or Kobe Bryant return to form, they could enter the conversation.

All of those guys are elite, but Curry has an argument for standing above them all. His combination of passing and scoring on efficient shooting is positively historic—and that’s not being hyperbolic. Per Basketball-Reference.com, Curry became just the fifth player in league history to register at least 1,800 points and 600 assists while maintaining a true shooting percentage over .600.

Here are the other four:

Player	Season	Age	Tm	AST	PTS	TS%
Wilt Chamberlain	1966-67	30	PHI	630	1,956	0.637
Michael Jordan	1988-89	25	CHI	650	2,633	0.614
Stephen Curry	2013-14	25	GSW	666	1,873	0.610
LeBron James	2009-10	25	CLE	651	2,258	0.604
Magic Johnson	1986-87	27	LAL	977	1,909	0.602

The retired names on that list are considered by many to be among the five greatest players in history. LeBron James could very well work his way into that conversation before he retires. That’s impressively elite company and shows how valuable Curry is.

I also looked at the Passer Rating and Scorer Rating for the top players in the league, and there were only 11 players who finished in the top 30 on both lists. Only two were in the top 10: Curry and Paul. 

Player	Team	Passer Rating	PR Rank	Scorer Rating	SR Rank
Stephen Curry	Golden State Warriors	21.31	6	10.9	3
Chris Paul	Los Angeles Clippers	28.63	1	8.2	10
LeBron James	Miami Heat	17.34	17	12.5	2
Russell Westbrook	Oklahoma City Thunder	18.24	11	7.9	11
Goran Dragic	Phoenix Suns	15.98	20	9.3	6
Kyrie Irving	Cleveland Cavaliers	16.06	19	8.5	8
John Wall	Washington Wizards	23.94	15	7.5	15
James Harden	Houston Rockets	15.16	26	10.1	5
Mike Conley	Memphis Grizzlies	18.09	13	7.1	20
Damian Lillard	Portland Trail Blazers	15.10	27	7.2	18
Ty Lawson	Denver Nuggets	21.63	23	6.9	23
Monta Ellis	Dallas Mavericks	15.24	25	6.5	29

Based on his combination of passing and scoring prowess, Curry carves out a place among the top 10 players in the league.

But there are issues with his game, too, which are interesting when it comes to player rankings. We’re willing to be more forgiving of a player’s flaws while he’s young because we expect that he'll deal with them as he matures.

Once a player hits 26, he’s considered to be in his prime, and by then he should have the basic elements dealt with. At that point, holes turn into stigmas and count against a player.

That’s pertinent with Curry because he’s arrived at that crossroads of his career, and there are still some sizable facets to his game he needs to demonstrate improvement in.

Defense

Curry’s offense is enough to get him into the top-10 conversation. His lack of defense could take him out of it if he doesn’t improve.

Defense is an aspect of basketball that isn’t easily measured because there are so many team variables, but defensive real plus-minus (DRPM) probably does the best job. Steve Ilardi wrote about it for ESPN.com:

"

The RPM model sifts through more than 230,000 possessions each NBA season to tease apart the "real" plus-minus effects attributable to each player, employing techniques similar to those used by scientific researchers when they need to model the effects of numerous variables at the same time.

RPM estimates how many points each player adds or subtracts, on average, to his team's net scoring margin for each 100 possessions played. The RPM model also yields separate ratings for the player's impact on both ends of the court: offensive RPM (ORPM) and defensive RPM (DRPM).

"

There were a total of 437 players last season, and Curry finished 231st among them—below average. He is what I call a "lopsided" player, elite on one end and a liability on the other.

To define that, I looked at the difference in ORPM and DRPM among players who were a plus on one side of the ball and a minus on the other:

Now, Curry isn’t as bad a defender as James Harden, but few are. And you don’t need to be as awful as Harden to be a minus defender. I mention Harden because he and Curry are the only two players with an ORPM over 5.0 and a negative DRPM.

As a result, both have the same tentative status in the top 10. Unbalanced play gives such placement a short shelf life. Players such as Michael Redd, Jerry Stackhouse and Deron Williams had brief stints with such recognition because they never fleshed out the rest of their game. 

Carmelo Anthony is an example of an elite offensive talent who has struggled with defense over his career. His DRPM was minus-1.02. Not being a two-way player is part of the reason Golliver and Mahoney dropped him out of their top 10 (emphasis mine):

"

The problem for Anthony, of course, was that his individual dominance wasn’t sufficient to lift the Knicks out of a season so wretched that it cost coach Mike Woodson his job. Anthony was good enough to carry New York to the East’s third-best offense, but not good enough to prevent the Knicks from ranking No. 24 on defense. Anthony was good enough to score 35-plus points on 11 occasions, but not good enough to prevent the Knicks from going 5-6 in those games.

"

Being elite only on the offensive end comes with a bit of leniency early in a player’s career, but defense is expected to be added. Curry has yet to do that.

Team Success

Curry can also cement his spot as a top-10 player by translating his personal success into team success.

Last season, the Warriors finished with the eighth-best record in the NBA (51-31), which would seem to be enough "winning" to secure Curry’s spot. That record, though, comes with a caveat: It was based on their defense.

They had the fourth-best defensive rating in the NBA but only the 12th-best offensive rating, and they had two other starters who were legitimate scoring threats: David Lee and Klay Thompson.

The lack of ability to turn offensive talent into an elite scoring team was blamed on Mark Jackson, who was fired for that and other reasons. Seth Partnow wrote for The Washington Post:

"

Of course, getting a team which prominently features Stephen Curry and David Lee to perform that well defensively is an achievement, but the reason the perception of the Warriors’ offensive dominance persists is that given their talent, they should have been better.

The criticism centers on Jackson running an offense straight from his early-’90s playing days, relying on endless isolations and post-ups (two of the least-efficient methods of scoring) and eschewing the ball and player movement his roster seems built for.

"

The criticisms of Jackson were valid. His offense matched neither his personnel nor the 21st century. The game has changed in the last 20 years, and what worked when he played isn’t effective anymore (but that’s a whole other article).

Curry gets a pass on all of that. But Jackson is now gone, and Steve Kerr has taken his place. If the Warriors' offensive production continues to lag behind their obvious talent, Curry will start shouldering the blame.

If his offensive abilities make him a top-10 player, he needs to carry a top-10 offense. That hasn’t happened.

Leadership

Leadership is as much a commodity as offense.

Joakim Noah finished fourth in MVP voting last year even though he's at best a marginal scorer. While his elite defense helped, his leadership was the greater reason he finished above players with more talent. He inspired his team to win when adversity struck, and that became the theme for the Bulls.

Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant are among the greatest players in history for reasons other than their play. They lead their teams both on and off the court.

Leadership isn’t just about what happens during games. It is about more than making clutch plays. Curry has shown he can win when the game is on the line. That aspect of his leadership isn't questioned.

It’s what happens between them and between seasons, too. Can he motivate his team when his shot isn't falling? Can he ride a player who is letting up on the defensive end? Does he improve the nature of a practice just by his presence? Is the team his team?

These are not easy to substantiate or quantify, but it’s one of those things you recognize when you see it. James has it. Paul has it. Durant has it. Curry does not have it yet. He needs to take possession of this team and exert his will. 

He needs to grow out of being an amazing kid with a beautiful shot and into the role of leader. It’s the next and most important step in his maturation. If he can’t do it, he’ll start getting the label of just being another guy who can post big numbers.

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Stephen Curry is currently a top-10 player despite his flaws. He is 26 years old and entering his sixth year as an NBA player.

He’s at that stage of a career where the learning curve is over and the pass for glaring deficiencies goes away.

If he still exhibits the same flaws in his game at the end of this season, he’s in danger of dropping out of the top 10. However, if he addresses them, he’s likely to move up into the MVP conversation. As much as there is to like about him, it’s easy to hope for the latter.