Stephen Curry addressed LeBron James‘ recent criticisms surrounding the wealth of three-point shooting in the modern NBA. Speaking to Malika Andrews on ESPN, Curry noted that he doesn’t have the athletic ability to drive to the rim, and relies on his three-point shooting to succeed in the NBA. He pointed to the dominance of big men in today’s NBA as a contrast and said he would continue to shoot from deep.
“Everybody has their opinion. It’s not like I can go out there and do a 360 windmill, drive down, and maybe dunk on somebody. For me, I’m never going to fight three-point shots. That’s just how I’ve seen the game forever.”
“Certain skill-sets that started coming into the league. You see how many bigs are dominating down in the post. It’s like either extreme, and the cool part is that defenses adjust, and it just takes time for that to happen. So we’ll see where that goes. I’m going to keep shooting threes, so don’t worry about that.”
Steph Curry sat down with @malika_andrews to discuss the amount of 3-point shots being attempted in today's NBA ☔ pic.twitter.com/a3N0f1890N
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) December 24, 2024
Steph certainly makes some strong points here. Not all players possess the athleticism to play a more physical, pounding game in the paint. For them, it makes sense to jack up several three-pointers to try and give their team a chance to win. While not all players are the incredible shooter that Stephen Curry is, they do consider their shooting a strength of their game.
Curry is perhaps the last player who should be held to scrutiny for shooting too many three-pointers. He is by far the greatest shooter of all time and has earned the right to attempt as many shots from deep as he likes. A large part of the NBA’s shift to a three-oriented offense is due to his influence.
The problem is that none of the other players who attempt several three-pointers come close to being the shooter that Stephen Curry is.
Curry Attempting Less Threes This Season
This season, Stephen Curry is attempting 10.5 three-pointers per game, and making 41.1% of them. This is the lowest amount of three-pointers per game Curry has attempted since his injury-ridden 2019-20 season when he attempted just 9.8 threes per game. In fact, he has only attempted fewer threes per game than this season in the years between 2009 to 2015, and from 2016 to 2018.
This just goes to show that if even the greatest shooter of all time, who at one point in his career was averaging 12.7 (2020-21) three-point attempts, has reduced the number of shots he takes from range, then the rest of the NBA should follow in his footsteps and do the same.
One might argue that Curry’s age plays a factor in the number of threes he attempts year-on-year. But the fact of the matter is that Steph’s shooting has never been affected by athleticism. Rather, it is a skill that requires almost very little athletic effort from him.
Age is perhaps the biggest impacting factor of athleticism, and since Curry doesn’t rely on his athleticism for shooting, age cannot seriously be considered a factor.
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