Is Stephen Curry just a product of the Warriors' system , or could he be this dominant on any team? Originally answered March 29, 2016.
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Answer by Matt Johnson , sports blogger at A Substitute for War :
Is Steph Curry just a product of the system that the Warriors have in place?
No. "System players" in NBA basketball don't really exist. It's just an insult brought over from the football world and incorrectly used to try to tear down unorthodox superstars.
In football, a "system quarterback" is traditionally a college quarterback racking up huge stats because he plays in a system that tends to let whoever the quarterback is rack up huge stats, and thus make that quarterback look far harder to replace than he actually is. The term was invented because of the University of Houston, and specifically because the first two quarterbacks to come out of Houston's system — Andre Ware and David Klingler — were drafted by NFL teams early in the first round as if they were future superstars, when it turned out neither had the talent to even start in the NFL. "System quarterback," then, is a way to say, "This guy isn't as good as he looks," because the stats associated with him would be there if another guy were there, and his actual impact is not anywhere near what you might assume it would be.
When the term first became widely used in the NBA, it was because of Steve Nash. He didn't look like a superstar, and clearly hadn't been thought of as a superstar in his 20s, but suddenly was an MVP candidate. This made people want to say it wasn't him, it was "the system."
But the reality was that the system in place, Mike D'Antoni's legendary "Seven Seconds or Less" offense, was basically just "Push the ball, be ready to shoot 3s, and let Nash do all the thinking out there." As such, Nash's big stats weren't actually in the points or assists, but in the impact stats that showed the team falling apart whenever he went to the bench. Nash was, in fact, the opposite of a system player — minimal basic stats, high actual impact — and yet people never really figured this out and have been using the "system player" term ever since in continued ignorance.
So no, Curry isn't a system player. He's a one-of-a-kind talent with better shooting, handling and balance than any of us have ever seen, and his dedication to improvement with the help of modern training and analytics is something else.
But as I say all this, I should be clear about something else:
Curry is far more effective working for Steve Kerr (and Luke Walton) than he had been for Mark Jackson, and you could say Kerr has a different "system" than Jackson. System is a general term with many meanings, and yes, in one sense, Curry's ability to have an impact has everything to do with Kerr's system ... but it's the same with every other player.
Take Shaquille O'Neal and tell him to stay at the 3-point line. Then pass him the ball whenever he's open (which will be always), and tell him to shoot. Will Shaq be amazing? No, he'll be terrible. He's a bad shooter, so he'll do really bad in that role.
Just because Shaq ends up with some coach who's unimaginably awful at his job, doesn't change the fact he is an amazing player.
The issue with players like Nash and Curry is basically that you don't have to be an idiot to misuse them. Everyone knows what to do with a 300-plus-pound giant with incredible agility like young Shaq, but until recently no one thought you could run the best offenses in history with guys who look like normal human beings as the superstars.