As the Golden State Warriors enter the 2025-26 NBA season, all eyes around the league are focused one one thing; can the organization put together one more championship-worthy squad around all-time great Stephen Curry?
Yet, throughout Curry's career, the disrespect for his game has been both constant and continually absurd, with analysts and former players knocking both his impact on the future of the game and his historical place among the NBA's best players, and NBA legend Scottie Pippen, with his recent comments, has done nothing but continue this slander.
While it can be debated whether Curry's skill-set, centered around off-ball movement and historically elite perimeter shooting, is the best thing to build a team around, his success speaks for itself, and attempting to disregard his undeniable greatness is a frankly impossible task.
Scottie Pippen claims that Stephen Curry would not be the same if the played in the '90s
In a recent interview with Spanish basketball outlet MARCA, Pippen was asked to compare the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls to perhaps the greatest Warriors team of all time: the 2016-17 squad.
Yet, in his analysis, Pippen focused specifically on how Curry's game would translate to a different era, saying, "It depends on the rules... If you play by today's rules, it would be one thing. But with the rules of the '90s, Curry wouldn't be the same. If we played in his era, it would be like playing freely: no one holds you, no one stops you. I don't know who would win."
While, in one sense, it is certainly true that Curry would not be enabled within the NBA's offensive structure to take as many perimeter shots as he does night in and night out in the '90s, it is frankly ridiculous to suggest that he would not be able to operate within the physicality of that era.
As was seen in the playoffs against the Houston Rockets, Curry's strength is in his ability to move constantly and quickly off-ball despite being held and grappled with by opposing defenses. While the Rockets might not be as physical as some of those teams from the '90s, they are among the most physical that the NBA has to provide today.
Moreover, while Curry has been known to capitalize off of the lucrative foul calls in today's game as well as the increased tolerance for 3-pointers, his shot and his ability to score are not dependent upon them.
Last season, Curry was not even among the top 30 players in the NBA in average free-throw attempts per game, and, moreover, he shot 56.8% from the mid-range on the season.
While Curry's game would certainly look different in another era, to reduce his skill-set to just catch-and-shoot plays and relatively empty offense is a vast oversimpliciation and a dramatic misunderstanding of both his talent and his impact on the league.
As he winds down his career, he will hopefully receive the flowers he deserves at some point. For now, however, it appears as though rhetoric such as Pippen's will continue to thrive.