Comparisons Between Lillard and Curry Demonstrate Flaws in Basketball Analysis

The modern NBA media world is dominated by instant reaction. Because of the nonstop news cycle and social media, fans and media personalities are trained to respond immediately to every shot, game and event. In some ways, this is a good thing. We get our news as soon as it occurs and don’t have to wait for hours to start interpreting the story and thinking about what it means. But this trend has massive negative effects as well. It leads commentators to put too much weight on what is happening in the moment. Context and history are ignored and recency bias runs rampant. The hot take is rewarded over the more reasonable, measured opinion that takes more information into consideration, and it harms the way we watch sports.

We’re seeing that right now as Damian Lillard dominates in the Orlando bubble. He carried the Portland Trail Blazers to the playoffs by averaging over 37 points and nearly 10 assists per game while shooting 49.7% from the field and 43.6% from three-point range. In the opening game of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers, he scored 34 to lead the team to a seven-point victory. His performance has been mesmerizing, and he has near-indisputably been the best player in the bubble so far.

But some people are taking his spectacular performance to an extreme. A surprisingly high number of people have begun to argue that Lillard is a better player than Stephen Curry. TNT’s Kenny Smith said that Lillard is a superior deep shooter. ESPN’s Max Kellerman stated that Lillard is “like Steph Curry, but a Steph Curry who gets better in the biggest moments.” It isn’t hard to find tons of Twitter posts arguing essentially the same thing.

Of course, these arguments are ridiculous. The eye test disputes it. Their respective accolades dispute it. And the stats dispute it. Curry’s career field-goal percentage is about four points better than Lillard’s, his career three-point percentage is about six points higher. Not including this season, in which he only played in five games, Curry has never shot below 40% on three-pointers in a season. Lillard has shot over 40% from the same distance once, barely breaking the threshold when he did so. Once again with the exception of the 2019-2020 season, Lillard has only had a better effective field-goal percentage than Curry’s worst mark in that category on one occasion. Curry has superior clutch numbers in the playoffs. For his career, Curry averages more rebounds, steals and assists. Lillard averages more points (which doesn’t tell the full story because he was an offensive focal point earlier in his career) and turns the ball over less, but it’s clear that Curry is the more efficient, well-rounded, all-around better player.

We’ve seen them go head-to-head and those matchups only reinforce all of it. Curry is 24-6 against Lillard, including 10-0 in the playoffs. In those 10 playoff games, spread over three series, Curry has averaged more points, assists, rebounds and steals, fewer turnovers and fouls, and shot better from the field and on threes by about 10 percentage points each — all while playing fewer minutes.

In a sports media environment where fast responses are emphasized, people too often only consider what most recently happened. But when there is more time to respond and consider an entire situation, it’s a lot easier to arrive at the correct conclusion. The Damian Lillard-Stephen Curry debate is no different.