Explain to me how Klay, Draymond, Iggy (32), Barnes (when he was only avg 12 ppg), Livingston, Bogut, Ezeli, Barbosa etc is "
plenty of talent"?
Going into the '14/'15 season, nobody would have said Steph's support cast was filled with "plenty of talent", and if you told anybody that his support cast was good enough to help the Warriors win 67 games that season and then 73 games the season after - you would've been laughed off this board. You're only saying this in retrospect because you're looking at it in hindsight to take away from Steph's ability and achievements.
The motion offense actually helped his support cast to a far greater degree than it helped him: it harnassed his gravity to open up the floor for his teammates to get easy scoring opportunities. Without it, the likes of Dray, Iggy, Barnes, Rush etc would have had a harder time creating shots for themselves. It's why they've had the most dominant offense in history simply because of his gravity; the defensive attention he receives is like having an extra player on offense. He was already a special player before Kerr came along; he was in the midst of rebuilding his body to get over all the injuries, and fine-tuning his shooting which happened to coincide with Kerr's tenure as coach.
His career-high 54 point-performance was in 2013:
He was a special player all the way back then.
Kerr has gone on record to state that, they could've run basic PnR during his MVP seasons and Steph would've broken all types of scoring/assist averages, but the team would be worse off in the long run; they'd become too one-dimensional on offense and his teammates wouldn't be able to develop their skillsets, which they'd need to when they needed to step up in the playoffs.
The motion offense has all been about helping Steph's teammates, all at the cost of his #s.
Another misconception - Steph is a good defender, and anyone saying any different clearly isn't paying enough attention.
Stop acting like if you replaced Steph with either Klay or Iggy or KD, that this team would have a noticeably better defense. Their defense is a work in progress because they've got
nine new players in the rotation, most of whom are inexperienced, and they're missing their two starting-rotational centers (WCS and Looney). They don't have the size, they don't have the experience, and they don't have the chemistry.
Neither Klay, or Iggy, or KD by themselves would fix GS issues on defense.
KD is 9-1 in Finals with Steph; KD is 1-4 in the Finals without Steph.
p.s. The Warriors were 296-62 with Steph (82% win record) and 26-26 (50% win record) without him at one point.
Checkmate