From Portland Roundball Society: Curry Not Serious Contender to ‘Reke

Our boys at PRS, the Blazers blog for the TrueHoop Network, run a fantastic links and thoughts post everyday called “Pick and Scroll” (Dammit, why didn’t I think of that name?). One of the bullet/dash points today was the idea of Curry being considered a darkhorse for Rookie of the Year:

So Curry is getting some late season hype as a potential Rookie of the Year candidate, the dark horse to challenge Tyreke Evans. Well, let’s take a look at what Curry is: Imagine if last-season’s Rudy Fernandez was a point guard. Imagine he could put the ball on the floor better and shot long jumpers and three-pointers better, but couldn’t finish at the rim as well and had to create his own offense more often. That right there is Stephen Curry in a nutshell. What Curry isn’t, however, is a serious contender for ROY. The only reason to bring Curry into the discussion at all is to stir up discussion. Of course, the fast pace of the Warriors makes for some gaudy stats, but once you use a pace-adjusted metric like PER, it’s easy to see they don’t belong in the same discussion. The PER gap between Evans and Curry is roughly equal to the gap this year between Brandon Roy and Luke Ridnour. Curry is a fantastic spot-up shooter—better than Rudy, better than most of the league—but he only remains a decent rookie point guard. Tyreke Evans is a superstar in the making, joining an illustrious pantheon of Oscar Robinson, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan as the only rookies to average 20 points, five assists, and five boards. By any pace adjusted metric, Evans blows Curry out of the water. A vote for Curry would be nigh unto Chuck Swirsky’s infamous vote for Andrea “Soft” Bargnani—and against Brandon Roy—back in 2006.

Look, I think it’s fine to offer up Curry as an alternative to Tyreke Evans because of the conflicting styles. One can’t shoot and the other can’t stop Vin Diesel from getting to the basket. Whatever. But it has to come with the disclaimer that nobody is taking away Rookie of the Year from Tyreke Evans. Curry is going to have a fine career. He’ll probably make a couple of All-Star teams.

However, he’s not better than Tyreke Evans now. He hasn’t been better than him this year. He probably won’t be better than him in the future. And that’s okay. He’s still very good.