The term “shooter” has become far too narrow of a description for 2-time MVP Stephen Curry. Even calling him the greatest shooter alive has a tendency to diminish what he’s accomplished on the basketball court, feats which include multiple scoring titles (something only 17 other players and only 3 other active players have accomplished, a franchise record in points (topping NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain for 1st in Golden State Warriors history), and an arsenal of shots that nobody else in the league can make. The most common comparison you see nowadays is talking about how James Harden is echelons higher than Curry as a scorer, with Harden even over Durant in some viewpoints. But does Curry have a case to be the best of the bunch? “Yes” is more likely of an answer than you may have originally thought.

Harden and Curry were both drafted in 2010 and spent their first few years coming into their own, so we’ll compare their highest-scoring years side-by-side, those being Steph’s 2020-21 season where he averaged 32 points per game, and Harden’s 2018-19 season where he averaged 36.1 points per game. The stats will be gathered from Basketball Reference, where possible. The disparity in these numbers at face-value tells most people all they want to see, but it goes a lot deeper than that. Harden’s usage rate of 40.5% was a number of ticks higher than Curry’s at 34.8%. Harden also shot more, attempting a hair under 450 more shots while only making just under 200 more. Harden got to the line more, taking a whole 4.7 more free throws per game, and attempted 0.5 more threes per game while making 0.5 less. Curry had a higher field goal, effective field goal, three point, two point, free throw AND true shooting percentage than Harden on just under three less shots per game. Steph’s efficiency is unreal when it boils down to the numbers and clearly shows that he’s a more skilled scorer, doing about the same damage on slightly lower volume.

The argument to counter this that most Steph deniers fall back on is the difficulty of his shots. The case is made that Harden takes harder threes and that his open threes are only a result of him gaining separation, but the same can be said of Curry, who shoots a lot better than Harden does on these types of shots. Harden in 18-19 attempted an impressive 411 stepback attempts from everywhere on the floor, nailing 36.6 percent of them. That’s impressive given that he’s shooting about league average on a shot that’s wildly more difficult and taking so many of them. In 20-21, of course, Steph Curry outdid him though: He took only 161 as a result of the Warriors’ motion-heavy offense where he gets a lot of off-ball looks, but he torched the nets at a ridiculous 47% clip with the stepback per ESPN’s Kirk Goldsberry. On general pull-ups, Harden made 36.9% his best year, while Steph made 40.9% this past year. While it certainly is important to account for volume, it’s very obvious that Harden doesn’t even do his best move – the patented stepback – better than Curry can.

What about Kevin Durant? Certainly, he has the case to be the best scorer in the NBA, and his case is a lot closer to Curry than Harden’s is. Durant has won 4 scoring titles, his best scoring season being 2013-2014 with the Thunder at 32 points per game. He shot a respectable 50% from the field, 39.1% from three, and 87% from the line. He had a higher field goal percentage than Curry, but a lower percentage in all other prior categories. Steph took double the amount of threes while KD took about 6 more twos per game, evening out their relative volume. Steph actually took a whole extra shot per game, but for the sake of the argument, we’ll call it even.

The stepback has never really been a part of KD’s game, but in his highest-scoring season, he still took a lot of pull-ups. He made 43% of them, including 40.8% from the three-point line, essentially the same as Steph’s percentages. As the three-point revolution hadn’t hit the league just yet, it’s sensible to see why Durant was taking a lot more twos. The most impressive comparisons from these two seasons is essentially that in each of their highest-scoring seasons, they aren’t even considered each players’ best: All-time, Durant is an impressive scorer that challenges the greatest in Michael Jordan, and he put up a 53/45/88 slash this past season while scoring almost 27 a game. That’s definitively not slouching, and he showed that he could play off-ball well enough in Golden State to mesh with Brooklyn’s new big three. But his efficiency, while impressive, doesn’t quite match the guy who’s doing it while being 9 inches shorter.

In the modern era, scoring load is often a question that people like to fiddle with in order to get the answers they want. Stats are cherry-picked left and right to prove points about efficiency and volume, but putting aside the subjectivity of the numbers, there is no player quite like Steph Curry that can wow spectators in opposing arenas. The degree of difficulty with which he scores and the combination of efficiency and volume he does it at is impossible to replicate: He was the league leader in three-point shot-making, and in the bottom 1% of shot quality in the NBA this past season according to Basketball Index, which is a testament to just how damn good he is. The game has moved forward, and nobody has weaponized the three in all its forms like Steph has.

(Photo credit: Ben Margot/Associated Press)