Fox Sports Radio host Rob Parker has been incredibly open about being fine with being wrong about his flaming hot takes in the past. And recently, he shared an opinion about Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry that the overwhelming majority of basketball fans do indeed see as wrong.
On Sunday’s edition of Parker’s radio show, The Odd Couple, alongside Kelvin Washington, the duo discussed Stephen Curry’s recent milestone of making his 4,000th three-point shot in his career, which is of course something no other player has ever done before.
While some may see this milestone as further proof that Curry is the greatest shooter that has ever picked up a basketball, Parker shared his contrarian opinion that Curry does not hold this distinction.
“He’s just not the greatest shooter of all-time,” said Parker. “That’s where we’re going to put this. Because I’m still going to say I would take a lot of other players in a big moment. This is what I’m saying, we can open this up sooner than later because I really want to hear from people and hear what I’m saying. When you call someone the greatest shooter, it means under any circumstance, you would want them to have the ball when you need a basket. I don’t care what they all say. He has had 14 looks with a chance to tie and win the game in the postseason. And he hasn’t made one of them.
“Tell me this, if he had all the threes and he was 7-14 or whatever, then you could look at it and say ‘Man, you remember all of those big shots when the game was on the line.’ The biggest threes he made came in the Olympics. And they don’t even count in the NBA. Only one of those shots was considered a clutch shot. Not by Rob Parker, but by the NBA and their definition of a clutch shot. Down by five or less with five minutes to go. When he made those shots in the Olympics, they were up by six, and it gave them a nine-point lead. If you are up by six, that’s three baskets they need to beat you. That’s not a clutch shot.
“That’s all I’m saying. I think he is disqualified from being considered the greatest shooter. Is he the greatest three-point maker? Without question. I would be lying to you if I sat here and said he wasn’t, he is. But there is a difference between the two. I really believe that. I would give Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Michael Jordan, any of those people, the ball with the game on the line before I gave it to Steph Curry.”
The main problem with Parker’s argument is the fact that the stats he is using for the basis of his argument are outdated. What Parker appears to be referring to is a stat from the 2022-23 NBA postseason that Curry hadn’t made a go-ahead shot within the final 45 seconds of an NBA Playoff game.
Currently, Curry is 6-39 on these go-ahead shots in the final 45 seconds, which admittedly isn’t a good shooting percentage, but it also isn’t as bad as Parker is letting on.
When you look at the NBA’s definition of a “clutch shot,” which is any shot attempt in the final five minutes or overtime of a game when the score is within five points, Curry’s stats compare much more favorably to some of the names that Parker said he would rather have shooting with the game on the line.
Under those parameters, Curry is shooting 40.1% in the playoffs, which isn’t far off from Michael Jordan’s 41.9 field goal percentage and Ray Allen’s 42.8 field goal percentage, and is actually a better shooting percentage than Reggie Miller’s 39.8%.
At the end of the day, the word clutch is and always will be incredibly subjective regardless of the NBA putting a label on it.
What can’t be denied, however, is that Curry has made more three-point attempts than any player in the history of basketball by a wide margin that only continues to widen throughout the remainder of his career.
So while Parker continues to deny the fact that Curry is undoubtedly the best shooter in the history of the sport, the vast majority of basketball fans will continue to disagree with him.