Zack Peñalva, Sports Editor
What the Golden State Warriors have done this year is something special; to put in perspective just how historic this run has been, here’s how this year’s Warriors compare to some great teams from recent and less recent NBA history – the 95-96 Chicago Bulls, the 85-86 Boston Celtics and the 12-13 Miami Heat.
This season the Warriors have averaged a league high 115 points-per-game (all stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com), which is as high and impressive as it sounds. Of the teams in this comparison, only the 85-86 Celtics got close with 114 ppg. But you can’t talk about the Warriors offensive success without getting into the importance of Steph Curry.
Both Boston and Golden State built their teams on a reliable three-point shooter that takes a large volume of shots and can convert the majority. Bird was responsible for around 22 percent of the Celtics shots during their championship-winning season, and he would convert nearly half of those shots into points.
Curry plays the same role for the Warriors; he takes the roughly 22 percent of the shots, but the difference lies in the fact that he’s been more consistent and also more active from behind the three point line. Curry takes well over half of his shots from beyond the arc and makes them much more frequently than Bird did. That efficiency is what drives his scoring so high.
While LeBron was playing for the Heat in 2013, he was right around that same level of use on offense as Curry and Bird, but his scoring efficiency was handcuffed by his limited range. LeBron made a much higher percentage of buckets than anyone else on our comparison teams, but less than 20 percent would come from three-point range, which limited his scoring potential.
The only person that can match Curry’s output from any of our selected comparison teams is Michael Jordan. Jordan averaged over 30 points per game that season while leading the Bulls to its first of three consecutive championships. During that time, Jordan ran the court and was responsible for over a quarter of the Bulls field goals. On top of that, he was fouled so much that he took double the amount of free throws as anyone else on his team. He wasn’t as big a threat from three as Curry is now, but he was taking more than enough shots to make up for it.
However, what really sets apart the Warriors is how much they’ve embraced the three-ball and how deadly accurate they are with it. Often, when a team finds new strategy or system that fits its players perfectly, it can change the way all other teams play the game; for instance, the adoption of the spread offense in the NFL.
For Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr, the NBA’s all-time leader in percentage of three-pointers made, it was a no-brainer to shift his team away from the traditional style that relied on big post players and high-percentage, short-distance shots. Instead, his team now creates their own high-percentage opportunities from deep. And until other teams figure out a way to stop it, Golden State looks set to make even more history as the season goes on.
