Now I’ll wrap this up by talking about the players in Curry’s realm
Three names – Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant, and Kawhi Leonard.
Has Nikola surpassed Steph? In all honesty, I think he has at this moment in time, as much as it hurts to say. Both of their teams entered the playoffs (or play-in) undermanned against tough opponents, and Nikola came out with the win and Steph didn’t.
And I’ll be the first to defend Curry over his play-in failure this year because he wasn’t the one who failed.
But what separates the big Serbian and Curry is that neither were supposed to make a postseason run this year, but Jokic is doing it. Not to mention he is the undoubted MVP and played every game this year. That’s insane for durability.
Ever since Durant’s Golden State Warriors’ days, I’ve always maintained Durant was the best player out of the two star Dubs players (although Steph was more important to the Warriors’ success).
Baring some major injury or collapse it appears Kevin Durant is still the objectively better basketball player between the two.
When it comes to Kawhi, I’m torn. Sure Leonard beat Steph in the 2019 Finals, but the Warriors also had an unprecedented amount of injuries and Steph still took it to six games.
If Golden State were healthy in that series I believe they would have won, I mean even if just Klay played every game, I could envision Curry holding that Finals MVP trophy. But the focus right now is one 2021.
Kawhi is very much still as clutch as anyone but the way these Clippers have been playing makes me question if he is really capable of elevating a team. These Clippers should be championship favorites but they could barely beat a weak Dallas team, and it took them till Game 6 and 7 to start putting Kawhi on Doncic.
If Leonard can really make a run at the championship this year I think it would be fair to put him above Steph, but the jury is still out.