Curry: 'If this is a down year ... I'll take that'
A narrative seems to be forming in some quarters that the winner of the last two NBA MVP awards - Stephen Curry - is regressing this season. While it's likely specious to make such a proclamation, the fact remains that Curry sat on the bench in the final seconds of the Golden State Warriors' Christmas Day loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
On Wednesday, he told reporters that he doesn't see it that way, and that he's still the starting point guard on a league-leading 27-5 team, as relayed by Anthony Slater of the Bay Area News Group.
"For the most part this season, whether I scored 16 or whether I scored 40, I felt pretty confident with the way I helped our team win and what I can do to get better on a specific night," Curry said. "If this is a down year, doing what I'm doing right now, I'll take that."
To be fair, Curry set an almost-impossible bar last season in becoming the NBA's first unanimous MVP. He sunk 402 3-pointers, blowing away his own record by 116. In something out of a video game, he shot 46 for 87 from 28-to-45 feet.
This season, Curry's true shooting percentage of 63.4 is his lowest since 2012-13 - while still ranking 15th in the NBA - but his struggles in games against the likes of Cleveland and the New York Knicks have caused some concern.
Coach Steve Kerr thinks it's all part of the process of integrating Kevin Durant into the Warriors' system.
"We're 32 games into this," Kerr said, via CSN Bay Area. "(Curry) made a clear effort in training camp to defer to Kevin. He wanted to get Kevin comfortable. We're still learning as a coaching staff where to put pieces. What works, what doesn't.
"We've thrown out three or four things that we thought might work that haven't worked. I think Steph has probably had the biggest adjustment of all of our players with Kevin's arrival. I think if you look at it from a practical standpoint, he's doing great. His numbers are still fantastic ... but he also happens to be coming off the greatest shooting season in the history of mankind last year."
Kerr added he intends to put Curry in more amenable situations.
"I think we can help him," Kerr said "I can certainly put him in a better position to get going, which I will. We're still learning, we're still growing. I'm not the slightest bit concerned ... it's just part of our progression as a team."
Curry thinks that should include more of him leading the pick-and-roll.
"I definitely want to be in more pick-and-roll situations, whether I'm getting shots or we're manufacturing ball movement," he said.
Curry and Draymond Green employed the P&R to great success last season, and now it's a question of integrating another superstar scorer like Durant into the equation.