Stephen Curry is a unique case. His offense game is so powerful, its frustratingly puzzling for defenders. While many teams have attempted to double, the open teammates on the Golden State Warriors squad makes the opposition pay. It’s the typical case of “pick your poison.”

While the Warriors have been nearly unbeatable with Steph’s lead, there’s always a critic to discredit the team. This time it’s one of the best NBA players of all-time. On ESPN’s Mike and Mike radio show, Oscar Robertson criticized the game today and the team’s ineffectiveness in strategy to guard Steph:

If I’ve got a guy who’s great shooting the ball outside, don’t you want to extend your defense out a little bit? I just don’t think coaches today in basketball understand the game of basketball. They don’t know anything about defenses. They don’t know what people are doing on the court. They talk about analytical basketball and stuff like that.

They double-teamed me an awful lot during my career. I look at games today, and they’ll start a defense at the foul line. When I played, they were picking you up when you got the ball inbounds. So it’s a different strategy about playing defense.

To add more criticism, Robertson believes Steph’s authority on the court is exclusively tied into the way the game is played today:

He’s shot well because of what’s going on in basketball today. In basketball today, it’s almost like if you can dunk or make a 3-point shot, you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Former Warriors player and current Warriors broadcaster, Jim Barnett disagrees with Oscar Robertson’s comments and defends Curry:

Barnett calls every Warriors game so he has a huge sample size of seeing Steph at work. Like any Warriors fan would say, Robertson’s comments are inaccurate. Curry and the Warriors transformed the game and continued to shoot jumpers at a high rate. When teams come out to defend, the Warriors are great enough to pick apart the offense inside the three-point arc.

2 Responses

  1. ds207

    Jim Barnett’s opinion may be a little bias, since he calls the Dubs games, however it does carry weight because he played in a different era, and he has seen basketball change from one year to another. Good call Barney.