Steph Curry is the best player in the world Now. Sorry Lebron.

[PhoSita]

I agree, Curry is the best player in the world right now. He's a human flamethrower.

[chambers]

Curry is the best offensive player in the NBA-a title that Durant and Carmelo battled for, for many years.

Lebron is still the most dominant player in the NBA.
He has the ability to be All NBA 5 on both ends.

I'm not confident that Curry would have carried the Cavaliers to and through the NBA finals as Lebron has done so many times.

Lebron's passing, rebounding,  getting others involved and then taking over when needed are the rarest form of basketball beast. Add in his defensive prowess and his ability to guard pretty much all positions and you have the best overall player in the world.
It's why everyone is frothing over Ben Simmons.
Guys with that size,  strength and agility that can literally play both ends as good as anyone in the world,  for 40 minutes a night just don't come around very often.

Basketball is about more than just scoring.
Lebron is like a god version of Kwahi Leonard.

[KG Living Legend]

I don't like playing the ranking game, especially because LeBron coasts during the regular season now

All the more reason why Curry is, right now, the better player.

This might be getting into semantics, but are we saying Curry is playing better or he definitely is better? I think we'd all agree there's a difference between performance and ability. For example, Harden is playing very poorly right now, but we'd all agree he's the league's best shooting guard.

 I'm saying he is better. Best player in the world.

[Roy H.]

I keep thinking back to last year's Finals. Lebron by himself carried the Cavs to two victories (and almost a third) despite doing it on his own. Curry, as great as he is, can't do that.

[Celtics17]

I haven't had a chance to see Lebron this year yet buy from what I saw in last years Finals he was still the best player on the planet. Did someone actually say that Curry was the best offensive player ever? Wow, what if MJ were guarding him? Wilt has more 60 point or better games then all other NBA players ever, combined and he also had more 50 point games in a season then MJ did in his career so let's not call Curry the best offensive player of all time!

[saltlover]

I keep thinking back to last year's Finals. Lebron by himself carried the Cavs to two victories (and almost a third) despite doing it on his own. Curry, as great as he is, can't do that.

The way Curry is playing now, I believe he could.  And I did believe LeBron deserved the Finals MVP, despite the loss.  But I've been able to see a lot of Golden State this year, and Curry is simply better than last year, when he was obviously great.

His PER is 37.  The single-season record is Wilt at 31.82.  Curry right now is in a different strata than that.  His win shares per 48 is 25% higher than Kareem's single-season record.  His true-shooting percentage is higher than Tyson Chandler's record.  His BPM is 25% higher than LeBron's record.

I'm aware it's 10 games, but he is currently on pace to have the best season of all time by practically every advanced measurement, and by a large amount for all of them except true-shooting, because Tyson Chandler is really good at scoring at the rim.  When you look at all those advanced stats that are composite stats, they all have different record-holders, showing why there's a bit of controversy, since they can't pick who's best.  That is, until Stephen Curry this year.  I don't know if he'll keep it up, but he's the defending MVP, so he's not some guy who's just hot.  He's a great player who's hot, and he's simply peerless right now.

And the shots he's making -- ignoring all the stats, I say wow about 5 times a game, and laugh hysterically a few more times because it's tough to believe what I'm seeing.  He's completely worth staying up late for.

[fairweatherfan]

I don't like playing the ranking game, especially because LeBron coasts during the regular season now

All the more reason why Curry is, right now, the better player.

This might be getting into semantics, but are we saying Curry is playing better or he definitely is better? I think we'd all agree there's a difference between performance and ability. For example, Harden is playing very poorly right now, but we'd all agree he's the league's best shooting guard.

Yeah that's what I'm saying.  Playing better now != better player now.  Otherwise the "best player in the world" might change from day to day.

But again the ranking stuff just detracts from the undebatably amazing and entertaining play Curry's displaying.  That should be the bigger point here - celebrating this incredible display that we're all lucky as basketball fans to witness (especially from a different conference)

[Roy H.]

he is currently on pace to have the best season of all time by practically every advanced measurement, and by a large amount for all of them except true-shooting

I think this says more about the limits of advanced stats.  Wilt once averaged 50 points and 26 boards for a season.  I simply don't accept that Curry's 33 points and 6 assists is on par with that.  I don't think it's equal to Jordan's '88 campaign, either (where he scored 35 ppg and won DPOY).

Curry is having a great season.  Best ever?  No way.

[Donoghus]

Curry is the best player in the NBA right now...easily.  That being said, I still think I'd take Lebron over Curry if I was heading into a playoff series.

Curry is insanely fun to watch right now.  At the very peak of his craft.  That whole Warriors squad is entertaining as hell.

[slamtheking]

I'll go along with Curry being the best offensive player in the game at the moment but for best overall player, it's still Lebron.  Only player in the league that you could put on any roster and he makes them a threat to win the title - and that's including the current Philly dumpster fire. 

Lebron may be conserving some energy for the playoffs but once he's in the playoffs, no one can take over a game like he can. 

[saltlover]

he is currently on pace to have the best season of all time by practically every advanced measurement, and by a large amount for all of them except true-shooting

I think this says more about the limits of advanced stats.  Wilt once averaged 50 points and 26 boards for a season.  I simply don't accept that Curry's 33 points and 6 assists is on par with that.  I don't think it's equal to Jordan's '88 campaign, either (where he scored 35 ppg and won DPOY).

Curry is having a great season.  Best ever?  No way.

I know you know advanced stats take into account pace.  And that's really important when comparing Wilt to today's game.  Teams back then were taking 110-115 shots a game.  The Warriors play fast by today's standards, and shoot 88 per game.  And Wilt played pretty much every minute (he averaged 48.5 minutes per game), which might be more impressive than anything else, but certainly shows how different the eras were.  He took 40 shots a game to get his 50, and his per 36 scoring average was 37.6, and pretty close to Curry's 35 right now.

And again, PER has Wilt with the best season in history, so it agrees with you that Wilt was spectacular.  I'm not saying he wasn't.  But Curry right now is doing something so special that it's breaking all the metrics.  If nothing else, he's absolutely passed LeBron.

[fairweatherfan]

he is currently on pace to have the best season of all time by practically every advanced measurement, and by a large amount for all of them except true-shooting

I think this says more about the limits of advanced stats.  Wilt once averaged 50 points and 26 boards for a season.  I simply don't accept that Curry's 33 points and 6 assists is on par with that.  I don't think it's equal to Jordan's '88 campaign, either (where he scored 35 ppg and won DPOY).

Curry is having a great season.  Best ever?  No way.

I think it's much too soon for best ever talk, but if advanced stats never disagreed with subjective judgments, what would be the point of using them?

If you adjust for the fact that Wilt and Jordan played 14 and 6 mpg more than Curry, as well as the pace of those eras, and look at things like point per FGA and Curry's major FT% edge over Wilt, it's pretty clear why efficiency stats that tilt toward offensive production would favor him right now.  And that's even with no turnover records for Wilt's season to pull his numbers down.

[fairweatherfan]

Now this Wilt/Curry discussion has me thinking - if they had the 3 in Wilt's era, how much would he have become obsessed with hitting a bunch of them, maybe even trying to lead the league in makes, etc? 

This is a guy who would play soft whenever he got a 5th foul because he didn't want to break his "never fouled out" streak, and led the league in assists because he wanted it as an accomplishment.  His shot charts over the years could've wound up looking like a higher-volume version of Antoine Walker's.

[sofutomygaha]

he is currently on pace to have the best season of all time by practically every advanced measurement, and by a large amount for all of them except true-shooting

I think this says more about the limits of advanced stats.  Wilt once averaged 50 points and 26 boards for a season.  I simply don't accept that Curry's 33 points and 6 assists is on par with that.  I don't think it's equal to Jordan's '88 campaign, either (where he scored 35 ppg and won DPOY).

Curry is having a great season.  Best ever?  No way.

Agree. Also, "best ever" judgement is something you have to take in context. Curry is the most advanced technology for the modern game. If he was playing in 1976, he wouldn't even be in the conversation.

Less extremely, in the 80s and 90s defenders were allowed to lay hands on guards. Would Curry have been strong enough to dominate in that era?

But yeah, the way the game is played right now, there really is no bigger offensive weapon than Curry, including Lebron James.

[Fafnir]

Now this Wilt/Curry discussion has me thinking - if they had the 3 in Wilt's era, how much would he have become obsessed with hitting a bunch of them, maybe even trying to lead the league in makes, etc? 

This is a guy who would play soft whenever he got a 5th foul because he didn't want to break his "never fouled out" streak, and led the league in assists because he wanted it as an accomplishment.  His shot charts over the years could've wound up looking like a higher-volume version of Antoine Walker's.

He definitely would have tried to shoot them a ton at least one season.

However the extra space from his team having 3 point shooters would have opened up MORE space for him in the paint. That'd be something given how dominant he was already.