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From Portland Roundball Society: Curry Not Serious Contender to ‘Reke

March 11th, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments

Our boys at PRS, the Blazers blog for the TrueHoop Network, run a fantastic links and thoughts post everyday called “Pick and Scroll” (Dammit, why didn’t I think of that name?). One of the bullet/dash points today was the idea of Curry being considered a darkhorse for Rookie of the Year:

So Curry is getting some late season hype as a potential Rookie of the Year candidate, the dark horse to challenge Tyreke Evans. Well, let’s take a look at what Curry is: Imagine if last-season’s Rudy Fernandez was a point guard. Imagine he could put the ball on the floor better and shot long jumpers and three-pointers better, but couldn’t finish at the rim as well and had to create his own offense more often. That right there is Stephen Curry in a nutshell. What Curry isn’t, however, is a serious contender for ROY. The only reason to bring Curry into the discussion at all is to stir up discussion. Of course, the fast pace of the Warriors makes for some gaudy stats, but once you use a pace-adjusted metric like PER, it’s easy to see they don’t belong in the same discussion. The PER gap between Evans and Curry is roughly equal to the gap this year between Brandon Roy and Luke Ridnour. Curry is a fantastic spot-up shooter—better than Rudy, better than most of the league—but he only remains a decent rookie point guard. Tyreke Evans is a superstar in the making, joining an illustrious pantheon of Oscar Robinson, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan as the only rookies to average 20 points, five assists, and five boards. By any pace adjusted metric, Evans blows Curry out of the water. A vote for Curry would be nigh unto Chuck Swirsky’s infamous vote for Andrea “Soft” Bargnani—and against Brandon Roy—back in 2006.

Look, I think it’s fine to offer up Curry as an alternative to Tyreke Evans because of the conflicting styles. One can’t shoot and the other can’t stop Vin Diesel from getting to the basket. Whatever. But it has to come with the disclaimer that nobody is taking away Rookie of the Year from Tyreke Evans. Curry is going to have a fine career. He’ll probably make a couple of All-Star teams.

However, he’s not better than Tyreke Evans now. He hasn’t been better than him this year. He probably won’t be better than him in the future. And that’s okay. He’s still very good.

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  • Kris

    Well i read this and wanted to see the Gap in their PER. So i did some research because i didn’t think it would be that big, but it was. Here is what i found, i also threw in Lebrons rookie season just as a comparison to one of the better rookie seasons in a while.

    Rookie seasons:
    LeBron James- 20.9 ppg 41.7 fg% 48.8 ts% 29.0 3pt% 75.4 ft% 5.5 reb 5.9 ast 3.5 to 1.6 stl 18.3 PER
    Tyreke Evans- 20.3 ppg 46.2 fg% 53.3 ts% 25.4 3pt% 74.3 ft% 5.0 reb 5.5 ast 2.9 to 1.5 stl 18.5 PER

    PER= Player Efficiency Rating is the overall rating of a player’s per-minute statistical production. The league average is 15.00 every season.

    EWA= Estimated Wins Added is the estimated number of wins a player adds to a team’s season total above what a ‘replacement player’ would produce

    VA= Value Added – the estimated number of points a player adds to a team’s season total above what a ‘replacement player’ (for instance, the 12th man on the roster) would produce.

    Evans PER is 18.53 with an EWA of 8.3 and a VA of 250.4, now compare that to Curry’s 14.67 and 4.1 and 124.0, and Jennings 14.71 and 3.9 and 116.0…. i honestly cant even tell why all this dumb Curry for ROY talk even started? Or why he is atop the ESPN awards watch or NBA.com Rookie rankings. Just to make it interesting and stir an arguement i assume.

    Player Efficiency Rating League average: 15.0

    So Curry and Jennings= below league average, just barely which isnt bad for a rookie, Evans is above the League average which is great for a rookie and why he is the ROY….

    Evans is also 8th among the PG’s in the league in PER right ahead of Westbrook and Rose. Where are Jennings and Curry you might ask, well Jennings 31st and Curry 33rd.

  • BScaller

    Curry’s PER is now 17.7 something. Curry and Evans’ PER is only around 3.00 apart. Curry was in Nelson’s doghouse most of the season. Curry had to earn his minutes. Evans was given his. Curry worked to earn it.

    I think your comparison of Curry to Fernandez is complete bull. Curry is presumably the next Nash according to the two Van Gundy’s. Watch him for 5-10 minutes and you’ll realize why. Evans takes a horrendous 16 shots a game. Curry, in a fastbreak offense, doesn’t. Curry has to play off-the-ball with Ellis, which amazes because Ellis and Curry both average 5apg, although Ellis averages a leage-leading 4.2 turnovers per game. Curry could easily average 10apg. Evans should probably move to the two-where EFF rankings are much tougher.

    Evans is really only the PG in sac so that he can fulfill his ball-dominancy and they have a way to feed him the ball every possesion.

  • http://www.cowbellkingdom.com Zach Harper

    @BScaller
    Curry’s PER is 15.33. Check it here: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics?position=rookies

    Your logic is horrible here. PER doesn’t vary based on minutes played or not getting the chance early on. It measures your effiency no matter how much you play. Marreese Speights didn’t get a ton of time over his first two years but his PER was through the roof. Kyle Weaver never logs a lot of minutes but there have been times in which his PER is really high.

    All you hear with Warriors fans is Curry COULD do this or Curry COULD do that. But he never does it the way you guys claim. Just because two coaches who have been fired in this league claim Curry is the next whomever doesn’t mean it’s right. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong either but if that along with a poor understanding of PER and incorrect stats is your way of arguing for Curry, you’re doing it wrong.

    Also, watch the Kings sometimes. Evans plays both guard positions and even a little 3 too. Of Evans’ “horrendous 16 shots per game” 8.3 of them are at the rim. That leads the league. So he’s taking more quality shots than Curry. Evans had many games in the middle of the season hijacked from him while the Kings forced the offense to get Martin back into the swing of things, which clearly didn’t work.

    Good attempt to defend your guy but bring a better argument next time.

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