Kevin Durant calls Steph Curry the 'best shooter to ever play'
Kevin Durant has been setting the league ablaze of late, pushing his shooting percentages higher and higher, essentially matching his incredible 2012-13 rates.
The newly-coined Slim Reaper (an awesome nickname, though he doesn't like it) is shooting 50.4 percent from the field, 41.3 percent on threes and 88.2 percent on free throws. He's threatening to post just the 13th 50/40/90 season in league history, the second on his resume.
His career rates are nearly as impressive with 504 games on his resume - 47.7 percent overall, 37.7 percent from long range and 88.3 percent at the line. Only four other players in NBA history can boast those percentages over 500 games - Reggie Miller, Larry Bird, Steve Nash and Mark Price.
But despite that heady company, Durant thinks there's at least one man who could out-shoot him: Steph Curry.
Steph any day, best shooter to ever play RT @nickyokoyama: @KDTrey5 You or Steph Curry in a 3-Point Contest?
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) January 23, 2014
Curry's averages this season are laughably "down" to marks of 44.2 percent, 38.3 percent and 86.4 percent. Those would be career-best marks for many; they're relatively poor marks for Curry.
The question asked of Durant was specifically about the long-ball, where Curry excels. Last season, he set the NBA record for 3-point field goals in a single season with 272. Curry's 43.4 percent career 3-point rate would rank fourth all-time for players with at least 200 makes, just behind Drazen Petrovic, Hubert Davis and Steve Kerr.
And consider this - at just 25 years old and less than 300 games into his NBA career, Curry already ranks 116th all-time in 3-point makes with 772 (Durant is 111th with 793, by the way). If Curry keeps up his per-game pace, he'd be expected to break Ray Allen's all-time record in about 10 years.
That's very forward looking, but Curry's pace has also expedited in the past two seasons, when he's averaged 3.4 triples a game. He is the unquestioned king of the 3-point shot in present-day NBA despite being four whole shots behind the league's leader, teammate Klay Thompson.
So add "good scout" to Durant's ever-growing list of talents.