Steph Curry’s pick-and-roll potency is aging like fine wine

Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

Curry has never been more in control and decisive around ball screens.

With Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, the phrase that first comes to mind most likely wouldn’t be “pick-and-roll” — nor would it probably be the second, third, or fourth.

For the entirety of the nine years that Steve Kerr has handled them, the Warriors have been arguably the least pick-and-roll-reliant team in the league. The manifestation of that philosophy has been the kind of skill set they expect out of their big men.

Instead of the athletic, roll-gravity-generating lob threats that occupy roster spots on teams that are built upon the pick-and-roll, the Warriors prefer their frontcourt players to be connectors and passing hubs who can make reads from all sorts of positions on the floor — at the elbows, on the low post, and at the top of the key.

You can count on one hand the number of legitimate roll threats the Warriors have had (or currently have) on their roster: Festus Ezeli, JaVale McGee, Damian Jones, and James Wiseman, to name a few. The one thing they all have in common is that they haven’t thrived as starters or mainstays in closing lineups, mainly because they run anathema to the ethos of the team’s philosophy of positional versatility.

That philosophy has a central engine that keeps it all running: Curry. His ability to create chaos on and off the ball makes everything tick; without his floor-warping nature, there is no motion offense. Playmaking hubs would struggle to hit cutters or shooters curling off screens if the otherworldly gravity that Curry generates isn’t there.

Only 24.4% of the Warriors’ possessions this season have come on pick-and-rolls where the ball handler shoots or passes to someone who shoots. That is the third lowest rate in the league, per Synergy — only the Brooklyn Nets and the New Orleans Pelicans run fewer pick-and-rolls.

Even if Kerr eschews featuring ball screens as the meat and potatoes of his offense, he does realize the importance of one key truth: that Curry is arguably the most potent pick-and-roll ball handler in the NBA.

In eight full regular seasons Curry has played under Kerr, he has never gone below the 77th percentile in efficiency as the ball handler in the pick-and-roll, nor has he posted a mark below 1.000 point per possession (PPP). His most efficient pick-and-roll mark came during the 2017-18 season — 1.145 PPP, which placed him in the 95th percentile, per Synergy.

In 23 games during the 2022-23 season, Curry is on track to surpass that mark. He’s posting a career-high mark in pick-and-roll efficiency: 1.230 PPP whenever he shoots or passes to a teammate who shoots. Among 64 players who have tallied at least 150 such possessions, Curry’s efficiency is the second highest, per Synergy.

He’s doing so while posting the highest pick-and-roll rate of his career under Kerr: 38 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions, per Second Spectrum.

Many people expected Curry’s game to age gracefully as he entered his mid-30s. He may not have the burst and agility that he was blessed with during his mid-to-late 20s — that’s a natural consequence of the impossible-to-win battle against Father Time — but Curry’s game has never really been about outlier athleticism and physical traits.

A sound and sharp mind, experience against all kinds of coverages, and the threat he presents off the dribble are what continue to drive his game forward.

Years of experiencing defenses throwing everything at him — including the proverbial kitchen sink — have sharpened Curry’s ability to pick them apart. When teams opt to keep their entire defense from being put in rotation, it plays well into his sharpshooting hands. The Boston Celtics learned the hard way during the 2022 NBA Finals that not even the presence of elite on-ball defenders — those who are capable of sticking to Curry through adept screen navigation and ball pressure — can hope to justify drop coverage.

This season isn’t proving to be any different. Drop remains the least recommended coverage for the greatest shooter of all time:

Bringing the opposing big man up to the level of the screen isn’t that much better — and is equally risky. It may take away Curry’s airspace for a jumper, but it leaves bigs vulnerable when guarding far away from their comfort zone. Plodding feet out on the perimeter might as well be carrots on sticks — except Curry isn’t a mere mule, but a destrier charging toward its prize.

Curry’s 75% success rate on his rim finishes is on track for a career best and is in the 97th percentile among all point guards, per Cleaning the Glass. He’s always maximized the threat of his shot to take opponents off the dribble, blow past them, and use a plethora of off-beat jumps and quirky angles to get past block attempts.

Now more than ever — at a point of his career where the inverse relationship between age and physical gifts shouldn’t allow him to finish this well — he has been defying logic.

But an understated aspect of his mid-30s success is an acceptance of the need to establish an in-between game. Opponents will sell out toward Curry to run him off the line. They will seal off the rim and throw multiple help defenders at him to make his finishes difficult or discourage them altogether.

Defenses will probably consider Curry attempting twos that aren’t layups as wins. But for someone who’s able to get into floater range and consistently make his short mid-range looks (i.e., shots taken in the area from just inside the free-throw line to four feet away from the rim), even those so-called “wins” turn into small defeats.

Around 19% of Curry’s shots have been in floater range — on track for the highest share of floaters he’s taken in his career, per Cleaning the Glass. He’s making them at a 56% clip — 92nd percentile among point guards.

Every kind of coverage thrown at Curry has its own risks, but none present the unique challenge as that of full-blown two-man commitments toward Curry around ball screens. The logic is sound: get the ball out of his hands and let someone else do the shooting or decision making.

The problem with that approach — one that has been widely apparent for nearly a decade — is that “someone else” almost always turns out to be Draymond Green, probably the best short-roll playmaker of all time.

No one is better at dissecting a defense at a numbers disadvantage than Green. He almost always seems to make the right decision: hit a cutter coming from the weak-side corner, kick out to an open shooter, or take it upon himself to score when defenses sit on his options.

No discussion about Curry’s pick-and-roll potency is complete without Green. The Curry-Green pick-and-roll has become stuff of legends. When Kerr sees his motion offense bog down, he turns to his two best players to generate confusion and complexity out of something so simple and direct.

Curry and Green’s talents and skill sets are arguably the ultimate manifestation of a mutualistic basketball partnership. Curry’s ability to find Green through tight windows — fueled by the threat he generates as an offensive singularity — allows Green to thrive as a short-roll playmaker. In turn, Green’s unparalleled decision-making and rapid processing is an extension of Curry’s potency, even while he’s forced to cough up possession of the ball.

Which is why the importance of having a competent release valve with Curry on the floor is ever present. Without Green on the floor, teams are more empowered to sell out on Curry; with no capable Green substitute to take pressure off of Curry, the Warriors’ half-court offense often dies a painful death.

With Kerr deploying Green to lead his embattled Curry-less bench lineups, Curry has seen more minutes (162) without his running partner. In those minutes, the Warriors have been outscored by almost three points per 100 possessions. That is a far cry from when Curry and Green are both on the floor, where they outscore opponents by a whopping 13 points per 100 possessions.

This isn’t to downplay Curry’s individual greatness. Rather, it enhances the importance of having the appropriate personnel around him to take advantage of the fear he creates — which, at 34-years old (turning 35 in March), is still at an all-time high, and is reflected in how the Warriors transform from the best offense in the league during his minutes (122.3 offensive rating) to the worst with him on the bench (103.6 offensive rating).

Most of that has come from the danger he presents around every sort of screen: handoffs, pindowns, exit screens, and the usual motion offense fare. But none of them arguably present the biggest challenge for defenses as much as the classic pick-and-roll possession — a play type that Curry has truly mastered to the highest degree.