Top 100 NBA Players: #46 - Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry

It may seem strange for a player as young as Curry to already be among the top 50 players of all time, but he has done a lot so far in his career, and he is one of the few active players who has a chance of eventually becoming one of the top 10 players of all time.

Curry's career started out well, with a second-place finish in Rookie of the Year voting and a league-high .934 free throw percentage in his second season, but ankle issues caused him to miss most of his third season, and people began to doubt that he was worth the high draft pick the Warriors used to pick him.

It all started to turn around the next season. Curry set a new NBA record for 3-pointers made in a season with 272 and averaged 22.9 points per game while only missing 4 games, which caused some of the doubts to subside, and made many believe that he could become one of the best shooters of all time.

The next season was just as solid, and it looked like Curry had found his niche, but it turned out that he was not just a great shooter. In 2015, he broke his own record for 3-pointers made in a season, raising it to 286, and led the league in free throw shooting for the second time. He also led the league in total steals, and was named the league's MVP in a close race over James Harden.

His new legend continued to grow in the playoffs, as he led the Golden State Warriors to their first championship in over 40 years, and though he wasn't named the Finals MVP, there is no doubt that he was the best player on the Warriors in the playoffs. Here are his stats from the regular season and the playoffs that season:

Curry (regular) - 23.8 pts, 4.3 reb, 7.7 ast, 2.0 stl, .487 FG%, .443 3P%, .914 FT%
Curry (playoffs) - 28.3 pts, 5.0 reb, 6.4 ast, 1.9 stl, .456 FG%, .422 3P%, .835 FT%

Last season was even more special. Curry joined the exclusive 50-40-90 club, averaging those percentages from the field, long range, and the free throw line, and he became the first to do it while leading the league in scoring, with 30.1 points per game. He also destroyed his 3-point record by hitting 402, beating the old record by nearly 50%, and the Warriors won the most games of any team in NBA history.

In the playoffs, he suffered a few injuries that caused him to miss some time and lose a little effectiveness, but he still led the Warriors back to the NBA Finals, where they lost to LeBron James and the Cavaliers in 7 games. Even though his play was down a bit in the playoffs, his scoring average was still over 25 per game.

Overall, he has led the league in scoring once, free throw shooting three times, total steals twice, and broken the 3-point record three times. He has also been awarded 2 MVP's and won a championship, and has the #2 3-point percentage in history, behind only his coach, Steve Kerr. His free throw percentage is #3 all time, and both of those averages are #1 among active players. As great as his last few seasons have been, there's still no guarantee that he has hit his peak, and no way of knowing how much farther he will rise.