Steph Curry reacts to a call in Saturday’s Game 1 loss.
It’s April, so you know what that means: time for harebrained takes about how Warriors superstar Steph Curry actually isn’t all that.
The last time this happened, JJ Redick said during last year’s playoffs that he’d rather have Luka Doncic than Curry in the clutch. Redick fled from the take immediately, claiming that he was backed into a corner by a “ridiculous question.”
The latest practitioners of the anti-Steph take are far more cut out for the hot take lifestyle.
On Monday’s “Undisputed,” Shannon Sharpe pointedly called De’Aaron Fox “the best clutch player” in the series. Sharpe was mostly focused on praising Fox, not ripping Curry, and from that angle, it’s not at all a crazy thing to say. Fox, who had 38 points Saturday night, was statistically the best clutch player in the NBA this year, and by a wide margin.
Quickly detecting that the conversation was perhaps getting too reasonable, Sharpe’s partner Skip Bayless grabbed the wheel. “I think he gets too much acclaim for being clutch,” Bayless said of Curry, “because I can show you too many numbers that say he has never been that clutch in big playoff games.”
As recently as a few years ago, Sharpe was calling Curry the best clutch player ever, but Bayless has been sweatily crapping on Curry for years. In last year’s Finals alone, when Curry put on one of the great clutch runs of all time, Bayless said he lacked the “clutch gene” and tried to make “F’n Stephen” a thing. Way back in 2015, he called the Dubs’ first title run “fortuitous.” If this garbage is starting again, maybe it is the good old days for the Warriors after all.
