On Tuesday, Stephen Curry led the Golden State Warriors past the Memphis Grizzlies. The greatest shooter ever put on a masterclass, scoring 52 points on 12-of-20 shooting from deep to go with eight assists and ten rebounds.
The 37-year-old left the league in shock after dropping one of the best games of his career, and the Warriors look poised to go on a deep playoff run and make the Finals.
However, not everyone is content to let Curry rest as one of the best players to ever touch a basketball.
ESPN's Stephen A. Smith is a bg fan of Curry, but he reportedly recently talked to a player who isn't convinced about Curry's greatness.
"I had a Hall of Famer come up to me and said to me, quote, 'Steph Curry would not have averaged more than 17 points a game,'" Smith claimed on First Take. "And now obviously I think that person should have been drug tested when he said that."
"I had a Hall of Famer come up to me and said to me, 'Steph Curry would not have averaged more than 17 points a game. ... In our era, we would've hurt him.'" @stephenasmith on Draymond Green's recent comments about comparing NBA eras pic.twitter.com/PxnstCSHR5
— First Take (@FirstTake) April 2, 2025
"He wasn't talking about his skillset," Smith continued. "He said, 'We would have hurt him.' He said, "He would have had to run through picks, he wouldn't have been as protected by the officials.' The game is exponentially more physical now than it was then. Remember when he came into the league with the ankle injury? 'He had never recovered from that with us. We had to make sure that we had to trip them every chance we got.'"
Now, the argument that Curry, LeBron James, and the stars of today wouldn't succeed is just downright silly. If you swapped out Isiah Thomas for Curry on the Bad Boys Pistons, Michael Jordan might have never broken through in the Eastern Conference.
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Had anyone set a hard screen on Curry, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman would have put that player in the hospital. For whatever reason, in the NBA especially, older players refuse to pass the torch and offer the current generation any sort of praise, even when it's clearly deserved.
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This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 4:29 PM.