My case against Oscar Robertson...
1. He won exactly 1 ring, and he was clearly the 2nd best player on that team.
2. He had only 1 MVP award.
3. He played in the early diluted years of basketball. His first 6 years, there weren't even 10 teams in the league, then the rest of his career, the ABA pulled talent away from the NBA. With that weak of a talent pool, he still couldn't manage a ring without Kareem and only got 1 MVP?
4. Despite being a much larger guard than his opponents, he isn't known for any kind of defensive accolades. Estimations are he was an average defender despite having a great physical advantage.
My case for Steph Curry...
1. He won 2 MVP's in LeBron's era.
2. 4 rings. Two as the clear cut #1 (only 1 Finals MVP), two as the 1B to Durant. Also in LeBron's era.
3. As has been mentioned ad nauseum in these threads, he changed the game of basketball to a shooter's league.
4. He is BY FAR the most efficient scoring guard of all time and does so on VERY high volume. He is #14 all-time in EFG% and #6 in TS%. Nearly everyone above and immediately below him on those lists are post players.
Oscar's triple double season lost some of its mystique for me after Westbrook did it 4 times without playing winning basketball. If we don't have Westbrook anywhere near this high, why not? He did it in a much more competitive league than Oscar did. I love to respect the original guys who did it first, but Oscar's lifetime achievements just aren't as impressive as Curry's.
There weren’t that many teams, but Big O was up against the peak of Russell and Chamberlain, and Celtics were one of the more dominant franchises in any sport, ever. E.g., Big O led the Cincinnati Royals to Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals in 1962-63 season.
Game 7 box score here. Robertson scored 43 points — his supporting cast was, uh, Jack Twyman, Wayne Embry, and Adrian Smith. The Celtics had a team of HOFers led by Russell, Cousy, Havlicek, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones.
