Is Stephen Curry Truly the GOAT?

TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal stirred up a Stephen Curry conversation on Tuesday night.

And by conversation, I mean an emotionally charged, inescapably subjective, social media-frenzying debate about the greatest players in NBA history.

“I’m wondering,” Shaq said after the Golden State Warriors’ 132-126 overtime win over the East-leading Boston Celtics. “Is it time to start putting him as the best player of all time?”

NBA on TNT @NBAonTNT

.@SHAQ on Steph: “I’m wondering… Is it time to start putting him as the best player of all-time?” 👀 pic.twitter.com/4ORTLUyHpt

When asked to clarify, O’Neal said Curry should be in the “conversation” and that he’s “way better” than O’Neal himself.

Countless fans and analysts all over X reacted (including this author). Battle lines were drawn. TV’s morning hot-take circuit predictably produced segments on the comments.

And yet, we’re probably no closer to a definitive answer than we were the moment Shaq started the discussion.

Such is the nature of the NBA’s all-time ladder. Outside of Michael Jordan being at or near the top, it’s almost impossible to find consensus on anyone. But that’s never stopped us from trying, and it certainly won’t now.

O’Neal’s comments may have been made in the heat of the moment. Curry had just wrapped up a spellbinding comeback against one of the best teams in the league (Boston had a 96.8 percentwin probability toward the end of the third quarter). He scored 20 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Four years ago, Bleacher Report published its rankings for the top 50 players of all time, and Curry came in at No. 10 then. The placement was met with considerable backlash, but keeping him there now would probably be overly conservative.

As noted by Shaq in the conversation above, Curry is irrefutably the greatest shooter of all time. That point almost doesn’t need any backing, but Curry is first all-time in threes per game (3.9), with a chasm between himself and second place.

The Best Shooter Ever, in a Game Where Shooting Is Basically Everything

A better way to look at his dominance there might be with “points added” from three.

Over the course of his career, Curry has scored 10,533 points on 8,220 three-point attempts, or about 1.28 points per attempt. The league average over the same stretch is 1.07. When you multiply the difference between those two numbers by Curry’s total attempts, you get to the 1,714.5 points Curry “added” over what an exactly average shooter would’ve on the same number of attempts during his career.  » …

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