Who is truly the better player: Stephen Curry vs Kyrie Irving

The NBA community will always debate if a current player is better than the other, or where a certain player ranks all time compared to other legends. Kobe vs Jordan, James Harden vs Russell Westbrook, Bill Russell vs Wilt Chamberlain etc. I’m going to start a new series where I compare two players, past or present, statistically, longevity wise (may not apply to all players) and at the end (after all the facts are presented) give my unbiased personal opinion on who is the better player.

In the 2015–2016 season, the Warriors went 73–9 and Stephen Curry won unanimous MVP; then as we all know, the Warriors blew a 3–1 lead in the NBA finals. During these NBA finals, Kyrie Irving outplayed Stephen Curry and even hit the biggest shot of the Finals over Stephen Curry. This sparked a very big debate in the NBA community, who is better, Stephen Curry or Kyrie Irving?

This section will include both regular season and playoffs and will be based off total career and best singular season performance

Regular Season

When you look at both of their careers side by side, it’s obvious that Steph Curry has a clear edge over Kyrie, beating him in Points, Assists, Rebounds, Steals and every Shooting percentage statistic. Keep in mind Steph only averages .5 more minutes a game for his career. A lot of people will chalk this up to the fact that Kyrie has LeBron on his team which means his stats are gonna drop which is why I’m going to compare their single best seasons.

The 2015–2016 season is with a doubt Stephen Curry’s best season, his averages were 30.1 Points, 6.8 Assists, 4.4 Rebounds and 1.8 Steals. Keep in mind also had a 50 40 90 season which keep in mind not that not only have 8 others players all time have even accomplished this great feat. but that Steph arguably has the best season out of all them, he was the first member of this club to lead the league in scoring while putting up 50 40 90. While Steph’s average of 30.1 points may not sound great as many players have done it before, Steph did this in less than 35 MPG which has never been done before, he’s the first player to ever do this. In 2014–2015 Steph set a record by hitting 286 three pointers in a single season, what did he go and do 2015–2016? Went and hit 402 three pointers destroying his past record and putting himself 130 three pointers in front of the closest player who isn’t him. One final thing about this season, Steph had the 8th highest PER of all time with 31.46, only behind players like LeBron James, Micheal Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain.

Kyrie Irving doesn’t have a really clear and obvious best season but I’m gonna base it off this season (ironic how people say LeBron hurts his stats but statically best season is with LeBron) Kyrie averaged 25.2 Points, 5.8 Assists, 3.2 Rebounds and 1.2 Steals all in 34.2 MPG. This was 47.3 FG percentage, 38.3 3P percentage and 90.5 FT percentage. Kyrie also had a PER of 23.0 which wasn’t only not top 20 this year, but worse than 7 other points guards, who a lot of get called worse than Kyrie Irving. There’s not much more to say about this season since he didn’t really set as many records or earn as many achievements as Steph did.

Playoffs

I won’t go as in depth as I did with the regular season and will just be looking at their playoff totals and not a specific season

Stephen Curry once again has the edge over Kyrie Irving essentially the same way as before averaging more Points, Assists, Rebounds and Steals. As far as percentages go though, Kyrie has a higher FG percentage but is lower in FT percentage and 3PT percentage. As far as PER goes Steph leads but barely with 22.7 to 22.4

Unbiased Personal Opinion

I think once you read everything, it hard to not choose Stephen Curry. Steph has more accolades, more records, and better stats (regular season and playoffs). Steph got a lot of hate when the Warriors blew a 3–1 lead and it didn’t that he didn’t have a great performance and Kyrie played his best basketball ever. Steph Curry also has a strength that I didn’t list earlier, he destroys defenses because you have to take him serious as soon as he crosses halfcourt.

This series will probably 15 parts max as some of the matchups were too unfair as soon as I compared the stats. I hope you enjoyed and the next will hopefully be just as good as this one.

Twitter: @nbasurrealist

Business email: JarodPStark215@gmail.com

Thank you