r/nba 2d ago

The way defenses used to guard Steph pre-2016 is crazy to see

https://streamable.com/x8lsr0
3.7k Upvotes

261 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/cyb3ryung Warriors 2d ago

pretty sure they werent expecting him to pull all those. this looks normal now but it was pretty unorthodox back then

511

u/Mu17inItOver Warriors 2d ago

I remember people saying it was bad to take 3s off a dribble rather than with your feet set. Only the most elite guys would even take threes coming off of screens too. The stuff guys routinely do now got Steph benched his rookie year

185

u/cyb3ryung Warriors 2d ago

definitely a tougher shot iirc mainly ray allen steve nash teir shooters were doing it and not too often.

what once was considered a tough shot is routine for bench /role players to do. for example, the finals blew my mind with some of those shots nemhard and wiggins were hitting

16

u/lilbelleandsebastian Supersonics 2d ago

ray allen was almost always catch and shoot or catch, dribble once, shoot

curry was just doing stupid shit and scoring anyway because he's the shooter of all shooters. never in my life have i watched a player like him where he literally CANNOT take a bad shot. he will be 85 years old looking like uncle drew pulling up from the logo and i'll still be surprised if he misses

1

u/cyb3ryung Warriors 2d ago

there were definitely times when ray allen got his 3 off on more than one dribble especially in his sonics days &sometimes on the bucks before becoming a catch and shoot guy on the celtics and hear.

but yeah curry is insane on a level of his own and we might not see another player with his style and efficiency at least not for a long time. taking what are normally seen as bad shots but with the efficiency of guys that get a lot more wide open shots in their diet than him lol

2

u/lilbelleandsebastian Supersonics 2d ago

times, sure, but typically in seattle he was more of a dynamic scorer and was yamming it down in people's faces more often than he was taking high degree of difficulty 3s

he has a weird reputation because people tend to forget his early years but you got ball knowledge, i gotta respect the hell out of you for it

2

u/Zoulzopan 2d ago

its still a hard shot, not everyone in the league can do it in volume even more so for bench players.

The guys who can do it in volume are massive assets compared to the catch and shoot guys. Even if they cant defend they will get a bench spot for 10+ years.

95

u/Oaty_McOatface Cavaliers Bandwagon 2d ago

Absolutely this was the era where Kyle korver was considered an elite shooting guard in the league with his consecutive 3s made record, Steph blew that record out and no one batted an eye.

34

u/rorank Rockets 2d ago edited 2d ago

It is truly incredible how good players got at shooting 3’s once they were allowed to do it and worked on it actively in the off-season. I don’t even think we’re done seeing the effects.

17

u/RS994 Pacers 2d ago

The current draft class was about 10 years old in 2016

We are just now getting to the players that have been shooting like this since childhood, will be interesting to see how that plays out.

6

u/usagerp Raptors 2d ago

Steph is still an anomaly with his efficiency with the level of difficulty of his shots. I don’t think we’re gonna see many more quite like him I think he’s truly an exceptional talent

Also defences are gonna keep adjusting and getting better at making things difficult as possible for elite shooters. It’s only gonna get increasingly difficult to replicate prime steph

1

u/usagerp Raptors 2d ago

You don’t think players actively worked on 3s pre steph? lol

4

u/rorank Rockets 2d ago

Obviously not to the same extent that they do now lol or do you think there were always this many high volume pull up 3 point shooters?

-5

u/usagerp Raptors 2d ago

I was just responding to you implying that players used to not ‘actively’ work on their 3 point shooting in the off-season

And ofc there are way more volume shooters now but also there were guys shooting tough threes on a nightly basis even before Steph

18

u/AnotsuKagehisa 2d ago

So I’m just wondering was there a particular game where he was given the green light to just keep shooting? I remember stumbling upon his debut game and Monta Ellis was taking the bulk of the shots and were just clanking them. It was really frustrating to watch knowing that here you’ve got the best shooter in history ( they don’t know it yet ) and they’re not passing him the ball at all.

37

u/GuntherTime Warriors 2d ago

It was trading Monta. They were essentially the same player which caused a huge log jam with their shot opportunities. Moving monta (even though they initially wanted to move curry) opened things up a lot more for Curry. What took a while was that Curry was dealing with his ankle during his first 3 years.

-6

u/birdseye-maple Warriors 2d ago edited 2d ago

They were not the same style of player, Monta was just a low efficiency chucker who took possessions/shots from Steph.

The other big shift was when Kerr became coach.

Edit: Wow TIL that Monta Ellis and Steph Curry were identical players. Thanks downvoters I never knew.

9

u/GuntherTime Warriors 2d ago

They’re two undersized shooting guards who could score really well and weren’t known for their defense. Even Ellis said they wouldn’t work well together as a backcourt.

And I’m also speaking from the mindset around them when Curry was drafted and how the game was played. Also doesn’t change the fact that back then Ellis was still seen as the slightly better player. Like I said, they wanted to move Curry, and the only reason they didn’t was because the Bucks were rightfully weary about Curry’s ankles. Obviously with the 20/20 benefit of hindsight that was the better move, but 10 years ago it was questionable.

1

u/birdseye-maple Warriors 2d ago

Some similarities sure, but "essentially the same player" is taking things too far.

3

u/collax974 2d ago

There is this famous moment where Kerr gave him the ultimate green light https://youtu.be/iAF13eyEVqU?si=RVqBOUwpJTZEuEDU

2

u/TonyIsMoney 2d ago

I clearly remember the 2016 preseason after his first MVP as the starting point of full form Steph, that was the moment when everybody watching him thought 'if he does this consistently from now on its over for everybody'.

1

u/llIlIllllIIIll 2d ago

They started running the elevator doors play and he just kept scoring.

69

u/GuntherTime Warriors 2d ago

Yeah I think some newer fans don’t realize how unusual Curry was as a player back then. People were watching him consistently hit those shots and still calling them bad. And back then they weren’t exactly wrong, just couldn’t say much beyond that cause he kept making them.

17

u/MedvedFeliz San Francisco Warriors 2d ago

Teams eventually learned that you never go under the screen at all — even when he's 30 feet out.

43

u/thenexttimebandit 2d ago

That was good defense back in the day

38

u/cyb3ryung Warriors 2d ago

yeah tbf they had a hand up on pretty much every shot

-4

u/CrippleJedi Celtics 2d ago

Yeah, all those switches on Aldridge, who's feet are nailed shut to the ground, is exactly what good defense is. "Back in the day" bro it's not 1990's video. It was horrible defense then as much as it is now.

8

u/uttermybiscuit :yc-1: Yacht Club 2d ago

People are really acting like this was an eternity ago. That Blazers defense was incredibly bad and got shredded by the spurs in the playoffs around this same time. They were notoriously bad coming off picks and either switched or went under screens 90% of the time.

People are also acting like this was unheard of at the time for a shooter to take these kinds of shots. The other team in this clip are the blazers who had Lillard and took just as many if not more off the dribble 3s. If anyone was familiar with those shots it was them

10

u/Appropriate-Goose231 2d ago

I mean he broke his own nba record for 3s in a season during this game. They should have been expecting him to hit ha ha

12

u/CrippleJedi Celtics 2d ago

Combination of Lillard/Mccollum backcourt with LMA switching on perimeter were always a BBQ chicken for Steph, that title is fucking dumb.

1

u/uttermybiscuit :yc-1: Yacht Club 2d ago

Precisely. They were one of the worst defenses in the league during this time

4

u/CrippleJedi Celtics 2d ago

Everybody knew what kind of shots Steph is capable of putting off. Yes, he didn't had 402 threes in one season yet, but he already broke Ray's record two seasons earlier and was hitting 3.5 threes a game on 44% for 3 seasons now. He was unorthodox and everybody and their mom knew how unorthodox he is.

1

u/J0n__Doe Spurs 2d ago

This. It's not that the defense is lacking, but it was uncommon (and weird) back then

That kind of playing that time you can only see in 2K

1

u/TonyIsMoney 2d ago

Yes, but in that Blazers series I don't know what the fook their coach was doing tbh. At that time people already knew, It was the easiest series Curry had ever tbh 🤣

1

u/Fluffy_Somewhere4305 Celtics 2d ago

seems like half of those clips are Dame not caring about being screened \(^_^)/