TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal stirred up a Stephen Curry conversation on Tuesday night.
And by conversation, I mean an emotionally charged, inescapably subjective, social media-frenzying debate about the greatest players in NBA history.
“I’m wondering,” Shaq said after the Golden State Warriors’ 132-126 overtime win over the East-leading Boston Celtics. “Is it time to start putting him as the best player of all time?”
When asked to clarify, O’Neal said Curry should be in the “conversation” and that he’s “way better” than O’Neal himself.
Countless fans and analysts all over X reacted (including this author). Battle lines were drawn. TV’s morning hot-take circuit predictably produced segments on the comments.
And we’re probably no closer to a definitive answer than we were the moment Shaq started the discussion.
Such is the nature of the NBA’s all-time ladder. Outside of Michael Jordan being at or near the top, it’s almost impossible to find consensus on anyone. But that’s never stopped us from trying to find it. And it certainly won’t now.
O’Neal’s comments may have been made in the heat of the moment. Curry had just wrapped up a spellbinding comeback against one of the best teams in the league (Boston had a 96.8 percent win probability toward the end of the third quarter). And he scored 20 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.
But we now have well over a decade of evidence to support his claim (or at least enough to support him asking the question).
Four years ago, Bleacher Report published its rankings for the top 50 players of all time, and Curry came in at No. 10 then. The placement was met with considerable backlash, but keeping him there now would probably be overly conservative.
As noted by Shaq in the conversation above, Curry is irrefutably the greatest shooter of all time. That point almost doesn’t need any backing, but Curry is first all time in threes per game (3.9), with a chasm between himself and second place.
The Best Shooter Ever, in a Game Where Shooting Is Basically Everything
A better way to look at his dominance there might be with “points added” from three.
Over the course of his career, Curry has scored 10,533 points on 8,220 three-point attempts, or about 1.28 points per attempt. The league average over the same stretch is 1.07. When you multiply the difference between those two numbers by Curry’s total attempts, you get to the 1,714.5 points Curry “added” over what an exactly average shooter would’ve on the same number of attempts during his career.
And the leaderboard for that number is hilarious.
Stephen Curry: +1,714.5
Klay Thompson: +945.9
Kyle Korver: +931.8
J.J. Redick: +780.8
Buddy Hield: +576.1
Somehow, though, even that doesn’t do justice to the gap between Curry and the field here. He’s also first all time in career free-throw percentage. And there’s a subjective element too. Curry faces almost incomparable defensive attention on the perimeter, but he generates tiny windows of opportunity for himself anyway. And the degree of difficulty on some of his makes is outrageous.
Shooting is the most important skill in the game, and we’ve never seen anyone master it like Curry has. Not even close.
If that was all he was bringing to the all-time great conversation, it’d be enough to put him well within the top 25-30. There’s a ripple effect that comes with his shooting and presence. Defenses have to be keenly aware of where he is the moment he enters the frontcourt. He’s often commanded double-teams 30 feet from the rim. And that makes the game significantly easier for whatever teammates are sharing the floor with him.
But of course, that’s not all he’s bringing to the conversation.
The True, Hidden Impact of His Shooting
Curry is top 50 all time in assists per game. The ball-handling used to set up some of those passes (or generates shots for himself) is among his more underrated skills. He’s fourth all time among players his height (6’2″) or shorter in rebounds per game.
And lest you think you can discredit all that with the oft-repeated “but he’s terrible on defense!” argument, remember that he led the league in steals one season and is above average for his career in defensive box plus/minus (an admittedly imperfect stat, but still a handy guide).
But even if I were to concede some ground on that argument, Curry’s offense more than makes up any shortcomings on the other end.
For his entire career, the Warriors are plus-8.1 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the floor and minus-2.8 when he’s off. That gives him a plus-10.9 “net rating swing” that tops LeBron James’ plus-10.8 and dwarfs Kobe Bryant’s plus-4.6 (or even his best 10-year mark of plus-7.9).
That level of impact for that many years is, again, outrageous.
If you start to narrow his stats down to a five- or six-year peak, it gets even easier to mention him among the greats.
Box plus/minus is tracked back to 1973-74 and “…is a basketball box score-based metric that estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team when that player is on the court,” and Curry’s best 500-game stretch (around six seasons) by BPM comes in at plus-8.7.
Here’s a handful of other 500-game marks for players often mentioned in top 10-15 conversations.
Shaquille O’Neal: +7.2
Tim Duncan: +7.1
Kobe Bryant: +6.2
Hakeem Olajuwon: +6.2
His LinkedIn Profile
Decent company there, but you may be more of a vibes and accolades person than someone easily influenced by stats.
In that case, consider the following:
Curry is the only unanimous MVP in NBA history.
He’s one of four players in NBA history (along with Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) with at least two MVPs, two scoring titles and one Finals MVP.
He welcomed Kevin Durant to his team and culture with open arms and willingly became a 1B scoring option.
He’s been with the same franchise his entire career, and the Warriors’ valuation has gone from $176 million (and 27th in the league) five years before he was drafted to $7.7 billion (first place) now.
The brand of basketball championed by he and coach Steve Kerr, which emphasizes ball and player movement over isolation and league-wide homogeneity, inspired copycats and made the NBA more fun to watch.
He’s won four championships (including one before KD arrived and one after), the same number as Shaq, two ahead of Durant and one behind Kobe.
He has nine All-NBA selections, which ranks 26th all time but is only two behind 12th place (seems attainable, given his current level of play).
That laundry list not your style either? How about basic stats?
Curry has career averages of 24.7 points, 6.5 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. Among those with at least 15,000 minutes, no one in league history matched or exceeded all four marks for an entire career. If you lower the qualifiers to 22, six, four and one, you only add Larry Bird, James Harden, LeBron James, Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook.
And the only players who match or exceed all of Curry’s per-game marks for points, assists, rebounds and steals in the playoffs are Luka Dončić and LeBron.
The Bottom Line
But none of that directly addresses the matter raised by O’Neal on Tuesday. Where does all this put Curry on the all-time list?
Again, he came in 10th in 2019. The only point guard ahead of him was Magic Johnson, who was fourth. Prior to this season, Curry’s numbers beat Magic’s in a landslide in a blind-poll comparison.
That certainly doesn’t end the specific “best point guard of all time” debate. Magic has one more title than Curry and is higher on the career BPM leaderboard. But it’s safe to say that Curry’s range on the all-time list could stretch as high as fourth now.
Depending on how much value you put on career totals, All-Star appearances and other accolades, you might be able to stretch that range as far down as 15 or so (though my own range for him would probably be 4-10).
The only players who seem untouchable for Curry, at least right now, is basketball’s triumvirate of MJ, LeBron and Kareem.
There isn’t enough space here to dive into the resumes of all three, but rest assured, they’re ironclad. And of course, LeBron’s not done writing his. He just won a fourth championship in 2020, and his 2023-24 BPM is the highest he’s had since 2017-18. He’s not just defying Father Time. He’s sent him to the corner for a timeout.
Catching him, or even the two greats who’ve already retired, might be impossible.
There’s no way he’s reaching LeBron or Kareem on the all-time points leaderboard, and even Jordan is a long shot there. He has a chance to get into the top 10, but that won’t be the basis of his potential top-three-player case.
Really, the only hope he has to challenge the three who are still definitively ahead of him is to win two more championships. That would tie him with Jordan and Kareem (and put him one ahead of Kobe).
And given the expanding, worldwide talent pool, the fact that there are now 30 teams in the NBA, it’s fair to weigh modern titles a bit heavier than those of previous eras.
Two more is a long shot, given the depth of the aforementioned talent and the apparent declines of Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.
But the Warriors are less than two years removed from their last championship. Curry isn’t slowing down (at least not much). And it would be hard to be surprised by anything from him at this point.
On Tuesday, he reminded everyone (not just Shaq) that he still has the ability to completely take over a game or series.
Like LeBron, he’s still very much building on a resume for his placement on the NBA’s all-time ladder.