Are Steph Curry, Klay Thompson best NBA backcourt ever? Warriors star sees case originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Aside from the Boston Celtics building the most remarkable dynasty ever, the history of the NBA is light on absolutes. From greatest player to greatest at each position to greatest coach, opinions tend to vary. And forever will.
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One claim, however, that can stake a reasonable case for being above debate is that Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, during their 666 games as teammates on the Warriors, represented the best, and most enduring, guard duo ever.
“You let everybody have their opinions on that,” Curry said in an appearance on the NBC Sports Bay Area’s Dubs Talk podcast, which debuted Monday. “It is kind of crazy to think that it’s not inconceivable, or you won’t be yelled at, if you’re standing on that hill.”
It’s a sturdy hill that began forming in 2012-13, their first full season as starters with Golden State. After becoming the first teammates to make more than 200 3-pointers in the regular season, they made 67, on 40.6-percent shooting, as the No. 6 seed Warriors upset the third-seeded Denver Nuggets in six games before pushing the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs to six games.
One year later, the Warriors gave birth to a dynasty.
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Curry and Thompson are the only backcourt duo to reach five consecutive NBA Finals. The Celtics of three generations ago went to 10 consecutive Finals but had a rotating cast of starters in the backcourt, with Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, Tom “Satch” Sanders and Larry Siegfried, among others.
Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant never reached the NBA Finals in four consecutive seasons, and their backcourt partners are, to be frank, relegated to trivia. Magic Johnson made it to four in a row, two with Norm Nixon and two with Byron Scott – neither of whom will join Magic in the Hall of Fame.
The above players made an impact on the game – Magic, Michael and Kobe in particular – but none altered the basketball landscape to the degree the “Splash Brothers” did. Curry is the all-time leader in 3-pointers and, by consensus, the king of the 3-pointer. Yet Thompson holds the record for most in a game, draining 14 in 27 searing minutes in 2018. All five of Curry’s assists went to Klay, including the one that tied Steph’s single-game record of 13.
“My coach at Davidson, Bob McKillop, used to say if you help somebody, you help yourself,” Curry said. “And that’s not like a selfish ambition. That’s an approach to the game. And that night was exactly what it’s supposed to be.
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“I did make it harder myself if I want to come back and try to now make 15 3s in a game to have that record. But I’m glad that it’s his right now.”
With Curry being the family man and Thompson a confirmed bachelor, they led very different lives off the court. It was their competitive zeal and shared desire for excellence that was perhaps the strongest bond between them. There were times when it seemed they competed to see who would be the last to leave the practice court.
It paid off for the Warriors, who, behind the Curry-Thompson backcourt, appeared in six Finals, winning four.
It also paid off for Curry and Thompson individually, with them going to five consecutive All-Star games – a feat no modern-era backcourt has achieved. (Cousy and Sharman went to eight in straight from 1953-60).
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“Two guys that played hard, were irrationally confident with our jumpers and we kind of thrived off each other in terms of when one got going, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, when is my turn?’” Curry said. “It was like we’d start to feel the heat and the energy of the arena, the ball and whatever the flow of the game is.
“Klay was such an asset for me on the court, because he usually guarded the best perimeter guy on the other team. He took that responsibility and loved it. He was selfless about it. You know he wanted to score, but he knew he could help us on that end of the floor.
“And then for me, like using gravity, trying to get him easy shots on the other side. You’ve got to kind of pick your poison. Who you’re going to leave open? That’s why it worked.”
Curry’s acknowledgment of Thompson’s defense is one of the persuasive elements in the duo receiving GOAT status. Klay, standing 6-foot-6, with a 6-foot-9 wingspan, was the primary defender not only on smallish point guards like Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard and Chris Paul but also bigger guards, such as DeMar DeRozan and James Harden.
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Yet it is the 3-point deep shooting of Curry and Thompson that stands as the first of several arguments on their behalf. Curry ranks No. 1 on the career list with 4,133, while Thompson, who missed two full seasons, is fifth at 2,754. Former Warriors coach Mark Jackson, in 2013, was the first to anoint them as the “best shooting backcourt in the history of the game.
Twelve years later, there is no debate.
“I’m pretty sure we got that one,” Curry said. “But in terms of backcourt in general, there’s obviously a lot of competition there. Who knows how these debates get solved and settled?
“But it’s the idea that because of our accomplishments as a team and what me and Klay did for such a long time at the 1 and the 2 spots, and how we did it, and the way people remember those moments in that run. You walk into any barber shop, any gym, any men’s league or whatever, and they start bringing that conversation up, you won’t be the only one in the room (with that opinion).”
