Stephen Curry has been a big part of the Golden State Warriors success on and off the court for the last 14 years. It would take a lot of work to find a player who has had a bigger effect on a team.
So when the two-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) is ranked as the 27th most underpaid player in NBA history, you have to wonder why Curry isn’t higher, especially since he won those two MVPs on the most team-friendly contract ever.
Advanced analytics is a useless way to measure how Stephen Curry affects the game and how valuable he has been to the Golden State Warriors.
HoopsHype’s ‘real value’ measure doesn’t like Curry, just like it didn’t like Klay Thompson, who was named the third-most overpaid player of all time.
So, when they made a list of the most underpaid players in NBA history, Curry was ranked 27th, while giants like LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and James Harden were at the top.
“Many may not agree, but according to Real Value, two-time league MVP Stephen Curry was overpaid in 2022-23 – and by a fairly sizable margin”, authors Frank Urbina and Raul Barrigon wrote.
It is clear that there are better ways to judge Stephen Curry than advanced analytics. Should he be below Sam Cassell, Steve Nash, Jimmy Butler, Karl Malone, and DeMarcus Cousins, who are all right above him?
Winning, usually the most important thing in professional sports, doesn’t have much to do with this. Sixteen of the 26 players ranked above Curry have never won a title.
Even though it’s important to do well as a rookie or on a smaller contract, Curry should be able to fill that void with his four-year, $44 million deal from 2013 to 2016. Even since then, players who can be the best on a championship team are well worth the supermax-level money Curry has been making.
Curry has changed Golden State’s luck more than anyone else. This may be the most important thing to say about him. The team was bought by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber in 2010 for $450 million. Forbes says the Warriors are worth $7 billion as of October 2022. Curry has been the main force behind it, which seems important when figuring out how much a player is worth overall.
