Yes, that stat (as does every single stat in existence)
Precisely my point... so let’s try to do that right
No more than any other top-end offensive PG in the game.
Mehhhhhh idk about that ... it would be interesting if there were some way to quantify this more accurately ... but even if we use the standard that you seem to like which is the % of defensive plays guarded out of the PnR you have players like Lillard who defends the PnR on 44% of his defensive possessions and Kemba who defend the PnR on 46% of his possessions ...idk if you consider John Wall or Goran Dragic top end offensive PG’s but they also defend the PnR at a higher rate than Curry at 40% and 50% respectively this year .. this a pretty sizeable difference than Curry’s 34% timo ... in fact TBH Curry is really on the low end for this number this particular season as far as “scoring pg’s” the only names of note I see below him are CP3 and Westbrook ...consider that with the fact that Klay and Iggy have basically the same % of plays defends our of PnR matched with my eye test and idk bruh ...it is interesting tho
A lot of folks think that because Curry isn't always guarding the opposition PG, it's because he can't, or because he doesn't want to, or because Kerr's hiding him. When really, most of the time it's to manage his energy for the game (why tire out you most important offensive weapon needlessly on defense?) and the marathon of the regular season, keep him out of foul trouble and because the other guards/wings are better at handling switches onto bigs.
I agree with most of this .... maybe “hiding” him is too negative a connotation but I must say as you are alluding to there does seem to be a concerted effort to “preserve” him on defense so to speak ...probably due to the high pace of play in today’s game especially with the Warriors ... I don’t think it’s as practical to have your number one scoring option try to be your best perimeter defender necessarily in today’s game ... people talk about MJ but they forget that in his era the pace of play was much lower Jordan’s 72 win team had a pace of play at 92 pssesions per game and that wasn’t 19th that year ... this year that number wouldn’t even rank on the charts it would be over a possession below the dead last Grizzlies... but I do also think Curry has a bad habit for getting lazy and reaching in picking up stupid fouls too often and that may also be apart of the “preserving” strategy
Those numbers are centered around the pick and roll (ball-handler). Gordon wasn't involved in too much PnR action in this game when Curry was guarding him - Curry was guarding him mostly on off-ball actions.
I should have specified that I was just using Gordon as an example of how the Warriors seem to put Curry on the lower end talent in general ..respectively speaking
While difficult to get an exact reading of one's ability, defensive PnR ball-handler stats are usually centered around the team's best offensive options when you play starter's minutes, so it's hard for those stats to be primarily based around him defending the opposing team's second/third/fourth ball-handler. Especially with the volume that Curry defends, which is more than every single Warriors player, and most guards in the league (he defends relatively the same amount of PnR possessions as Lowry, Conley, Butler, and KCP).
Mehhhhh again this is a little slippery ... only two of those guys are PGs so naturally their % numbers should be lower just because in general PGs run the most PnR action .... just in general right? And Conley I wouldn’t even use as a reliable data point this year because of too few games...
But let’s really unpack all of this right ... so obviously PnR defense is a huge necessity for most front line defense as so many teams utilize it in the modern NBA and that is reflected in the fact that when you look at a perimeter defenders splits a majority of their possessions are occupied guarding it ... HOWEVER that is not the only action that players have to defend and shouldn’t be the only measure of a guys perimeter defensive ability ... for example Curry guards PnR on 34% of his defensive possessions .. but that leaves 66% (the majority) of his possessions open for other kinds of defensive responsibilities ... so let’s get into those and see how he fares ...Specifically in the ISO (which is what that Harden shot came off) Handoffs and Spot Up’s
So I saw you mention that Curry was in the 88th percentile for PnR defense this year which of course is very good but what you don’t mention is that ISO’s and Handoffs represent nearly 20% of his plays defended and when you look at his performance in those categories it gets very ugly for him ...
On Iso’s (which I would consider times where the offense is attacking him) He’s allowing
50% FG shooting and .97 PPP
Landing him in the 37th percentile range for all ISO defenders ... this is well below average of course and welllll below Klays numbers as a comparison
Andditionally on Handoffs It gets even worse ... as he allows over 56% shooting in eFG and a very bad 1.07 PPP
Landing him in the dumps at the 20th percentile for all Handoff defenders ...both of these numbers for Handoffs and ISO are well below the Warriors other perimeter defenders this year
Now for a lot of teams being a poor ISO defender isn’t a big deal as a lot of squads shy away from stagnating ISO offensive possessions HOWEVER the Rockets have two of the most and effective heavy usage ISO players in the leauge with James Harden and CP3
So when Gordon says “we’re attacking THEIR weakest link” is he actually wrong or spitting facts only? It seems it might depend on just how they are “attacking” him right?
Just as a throw in ... Curry’s spot up defense which accounts for his second most defensive possessions (that is his ability to stick to his man off ball) is also quite mediocre as he ranks somewhere in the 56th percentile... not terrible but not some defensive stalwart numbers either
He does take the bulk of those duties, but not to any great degree which leaves Curry without a high defensive load of his own against the top guards. It varies on a game-to-game basis though, some games you see Curry guarding his direct opposite for most of the game, and Klay's tasked with chasing around the off-guard in the halfcourt, and then in the next game against the same opponent, there's a role reversal.
Yeah idk man the Warriors have a Lot of Wing Defenders that have rather high PnR defense %’s for a squad that’s supposedly not trying to hide their PG ... I mean shyt Draymond guards PnR BallHandlers 12% of the time and he’s the PF ....
What’s interesting is that I was looking up Curry’s numbers and I was looking at last season ... and he was being asked to guard the PnR a substantial amount more than he is this year ... 42% last year compared to 34% this year and the numbers were starkly different ...last year he was in the 38th percentile for PnR defenders ... the year before that he was much better tho to be fair but I just don’t know why the fluctuation is occurring
The point here is, those PnR defensive #s of Curry's indicate that if teams have been targetting him, they haven't been successful in doing so.
Mehhh you sure about that after looking deeper into ALL of his defensive numbers?
