This is all just revisionist history. The Warriors were the clear best in the NBA in 2022 as long as they were healthy. They were on a 67 win pace in games Steph and Draymond played together. Boston or anyone else winning that year would’ve been an upset.

The NBA needs delayed penalties like soccer/hockey for things like this

Imo that alone can’t account for the dramatic differences that came about during their years together the final numbers ran up as +2 when KD plays without Steph, +12 when Steph played without Curry, and +15. I think those dramatic swings are more do to Curry being better at elevating everyone around him than anything else. To me KD is the better 1 on 1 player but Steph is the better player for 5 on 5.

Again tho I think we’re talking about two all time greats so I don’t think it’s crazy for anyone to have KD above him those years.

Yeah I really don’t think that was the reason. KD was playing with Klay and Draymond too it’s not like those guys were coming in for him. I think Steph really elevates the other guys around him (including KD) better which is why the team as a whole played better with him.

Here is a video that gets into some more of the film and numbers. To summarize the video; defenses were always much more keyed in on Curry, KD had significantly more efficient scoring efforts when he played with curry than without but Curry was mostly the same with or without, warriors were +2.4 if KD played without Curry vs +12 if Curry played without KD, and +15 if they both played so obviously better but the real driver to their success is curry.

I wouldn’t argue firmly one way or another since we’re talking about two all time great players but imo watching the games and looking at the underlying data Curry was always the real driver of the warriors success. Defenses were also aware of this and spent a lot more attention to Curry.

I think that’s why they were always more successful during those years without Durant than without curry and to me the point was cemented by them winning another championship in pretty convincing fashion without him.

The warriors were always better with lineups featuring Curry and no Durant than vice versa even during the three years KD was on the team. That is backed up both by eye test and actual on off data where they were like +15 net rating if both played, +12 with curry no KD, and +5 with KD no Curry (I could be fudging the numbers slightly but it was something like that where Durant was obviously a great player but the real driver of that team was always curry).

Here is a video from thinking basketball that dives into it more.