Is Steph Curry PG or SG for Golden State Warriors? | Draymond, Baron & Penny Hardaway debate

I think people asking, is Steph a point guard or a shooting guard, is a compliment to Steph because the reason they ask the question is because of how well he shoots the basketball.

Yes. Yeah.

And so you shoot the basketball so well that everyone wants to make him a shooting guard. But the reality is, A lot of his shots are off the dribble.

Number one. Yeah, yeah. No doubt.

Most shooting guards didn't shoot off the dribble. When you talk about prototype, prototypical shooting guards, most prototypical shooting guards was one or two drip bounces.

Bang out.

Get to they spot and pulling up one or two bounces to the cup. That was a two guard. And so I think it's such a compliment to him when people say that because you shoot the ball that well. But here's the thing. When you talk about why he's a point guard is if you've ever watched Steph, and I've seen all of them, I'm blessed to say that the amount of coverages that he's seen and had to read, like quarterbacks read coverages, point guards read coverages, the amount of coverages that Steph has had to read and being guarded, I'm— no, Bron has not seen, Kobe has not seen, MJ has not seen. There is not a person in NBA history that has seen the amount of defenses and different type of coverages that Steph Curry has seen. And to navigate that, still average almost 7 assists per game on a career, plus his points. And to get those reads. So for instance, Steph is averaging 6.5, 6, 6 assists. I'm averaging 7.5, 8. I'm averaging those assists off of him making a, a quick read and getting me the ball and then allowing me to do what I do.

Yeah.

But the quarterback still had to hit me on the route, right? Like, yep, for sure. And that's why I say, like, no question he's a point guard, but it's the ultimate compliment because you're so great at a thing that they wanna make you that other thing.

That's special. You know what it is? It's he's a point guard who scores the way a shooting guard was traditionally supposed to score. Like point guards don't really, you know, like over the history of the league put up 50s and 40s and things like that. So when you see somebody like even you Penny, like I asked you, are you a point guard? Of course.

Right.

You know what I mean? Right. When you play with Jason Kidd, you still a point guard, you a combo guard.

Yeah.

And so now Steph has been called a hybrid guard. I say Penny Hardaway, point guard, point god. Steph Curry, point god. Because he just revolutionized the way we play.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like nobody in, you know, I've never seen somebody score shooting guard points at the point guard position night in and night out. You know what I mean? I feel like Mulberry was maybe one of the most potent point guard scorers.

Yeah, for sure.

Shout out to Steph. Iverson was a shooting guard. You know what I mean? And so like Steph is doing what Iverson is doing from the point guard position. And so it messes people's equilibrium up because that's not what you traditionally see.

Yeah. And it's like, it's like Draymond Green said, Iverson saw man-to-man coverage. He saw double teams, but he's like, he said Steph has seen every coverage imaginable, but his IQ along with Draymond Green's IQ and the way that Steve has the offense flowing, if we can give him that credit.

Absolutely.

It just, that marries, that marries everything together in a perfect form for how he plays the game. And then most of his shots are coming from him screening, him slipping a screen, him getting the dribble handoff, him throwing it and zooming in and chasing it and getting the shot. And being able to make those shots while making those decisions. Yeah. And then I think he's gotten more, he's gotten more backdoor cuts in his career in the last 2 or 3 years than I've ever seen because now he's reading them over playing them. He's getting the backdoors and Dray's leading them before he moves, like throwing them open. So I'm watching all this like, man, it's unreal. He's been blessed to have Dray because everybody couldn't have been in the position Dray is in. Throwing somebody open versus throwing somebody a pass, it's 2 totally different things. He has to see him open and see the vision of where that, ball needs to bounce for Steph to just get into that ball and just lay that ball up. So that's the beauty of, of the whole thing at Golden State that I marveled over, man. And I imagine myself playing in that, in that system with those two dudes. That would be stupid, bro. And you BD, us four, baby.

Let's go. Come on, man. I come off the bench. I ain't tripping.

Let's be down, baby.

Hey bro.

Hey bro.

I am not tripping. Let me come off the bench.

You know what I mean? Yes, sir. No, that's fire. Um, what, what we got?

I was gonna say, you bet you've been at Memphis since 2018. What we— yeah, what, what? Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, bet I'll go there. Okay. Okay, bet I'll go there.

Yeah.

All right. So I'm a big fan of the current Orlando Magic team. It's crazy because if you go back and date these podcasts early, well, during the draft year of Paolo Banchero, everybody was saying Jabari Smith Jr. would be the, should be the number one pick. And I actually love Jabari Smith's game. So this ain't a slight at all. But I said on this podcast, I said, yo, everybody talking about Jabari Smith being the number one pick. To me, Paulo Banchero's the number one pick. And they end up taking the intel from the Draymond Green show and they did the right thing and they drafted Paulo. You know? But you know, then they also did a great thing. They drafted Franz Wagner. Yes. You just said, you know, if you were with us, you know how that would've been. How would you have foreseen playing with those two young guns They both would be All-Stars this year if they were playing. Paulo's been hurt for a while and Fran, I don't know if his games is gonna end up being enough to ultimately make it. But how could you saw yourself fitting in with those young guys that you got over there in Orlando right now?

Yeah, no, first of all, shout out to Jamal Mosley, man. The Orlando Magic, they did a great job on choosing him because he paid his dues, bro. So I'm happy for him. Done a phenomenal job with his staff of, knowing who's who. He knew Paulo was that guy. And for me to play in that system, and like I said, with Franz, he's hurt, he's injured as well. He might be out for weeks.

Yeah.

So he's injured as well. But with those guys healthy, all I would've done is just fed off those guys. And whenever I needed to take over the game, I would, but I would let them know, hey, I got y'all back. And no matter what, let's go win. And I would've been the ultimate teammate. That's just who I was. I just wanted to win. And you use that youth and that talent and you just get with them in the gym. We would've got in the gym a lot so that they could learn who I was and who they were. Then we would've watched film a lot just to try to get them to understand what the league was all about and how they could get an advantage on being young guys against veteran guys or guys in the league already. And Paulo came in just destroying from the beginning anyway. So that's what I would've done, man. It would've been fun to play with that group.

What, what do you think is next? Like obviously they gotta get healthy.

Yeah.

And although I think they're having a great year, I don't quite think they're at that contender level yet. What do you think needs to happen for that team? Obviously those two guys are staples, not going anywhere. Yeah. They'll be there for the next 10 years if they want to be. But what do you think that team needs to do in order to continue to take that next jump and take advantage of these young guys? Like you want to take advantage of these guys while they on low salaries because once the salaries get too big, you start having to pluck pieces.

Yeah.

And Franz just got paid, Paulo will.

Yeah, I think what you have to do is you gotta get smart vets. The guys like back in the day was like a James Posey.

Yeah.

Or Tony Allen or, or—

David West.

David West. Guys, you know, like that, that are true professionals that know how to win, that still have enough game that can get in the game and kind of help manage them. Kind of help understand that I'm gonna take the best forward in the game if I'm a forward. You take the second level forward and watch how I do this. If I'm a guard that comes in, let me take the, the high level guard. You take that. Yeah. And just kind of teach them how to win. And I think that's the next level for Orlando. And it's beautiful, a city as Orlando is, man, with all the offer, they don't get vets. They want to go there and I understand, but in another way I don't because this team is up and coming, but they're gonna need some, somebody that can get down there and kind of recruit vets in there. When I was in Orlando, the Orlando Magic hired Dr., uh, Dr. J, Julius Erving, to come in.

Yes, sir.

To try to help recruit some vets in there, man. And Dr. J did a great job. So they need some guys.— they can get some vets in there to go. You can't go all young.

That's not gonna work.

Yeah, they need some blue guys.

Blue guys.

I agree with that. I definitely agree with that. That's, that's a problem around the league. A lot of places people start getting rid of vets because the tax, you know, penalties are so big. And that $3 million that a vet will make as opposed to the million dollars ends up costing $14 million as opposed to 2.5.— and people start getting rid of vets. But I think the effect that it has on these organizations, like, you can say that $14 million if you want to. And don't get me wrong, $14 million is a lot of money. But in the grand scheme of these teams, you can try to say that $14 million if you want to, but your, your young guys end up turning into guys that—

Yep.

Never learn how to do it on their own. They have to then go get with somebody else because they didn't have a vet to show them how to do it, right? So then they go get the game and then it's like, oh, I got the game now. All right, now I— but you kind of miss your window.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Like Steph is Steph because he was able to push through that window when he got the opportunity in year 5. You know, and like you start looking at guys who did it and pushed through their windows, they probably had some great vets around. Like we had incredible vets. I, you know, when I speak of Steph, we had, Bogut was great, you know, D. Lee. But we had Jared Jack come through there, we had Jermaine O'Neal come through there, we had Richard Jefferson come. Like, we had great vets come through there. Then David West came in. And even though we had won championships there, we was still young, so we would still get wild. D. West, Andre come in the game, they settled the game down. Like, we needed that.

Yeah.

Although we had won championship before, it was like, yeah, we know how to win and we got the skill, But we needed those young, we coming out there, me and Steph be fucking throwing it out of bounds. I throw it over here thinking he going that way, he done ran the other way. Like, but you know, to your point of passing them open, sometimes that happens, you know? And like they come in and it's like, whoo, all right, now here we go.

You know what I mean?

These teams don't have that and it's a problem.

Yeah, that hurts me deeply, man, watching. I was at an Aces game this summer and I was sitting next to John Wall That just doesn't sit well with me, bro. I know what happened in Washington, bro, but this man can help a team just for that main reason. Long as the veterans understand when you come in there what it's all about.

Yeah.

I think that he deserves— what if he was in Orlando to try to help out those young guards? I'm just saying, I'm just giving names, man.

It's just, to me, it's a lot of knowledge, man.

It's like you need the knowledge, man.