There has been a trending take recently from a player named Mike James, a former reserve guard from the Brooklyn Nets. He tweeted this just recently:
Kyrie more skilled then Steph. Steph just shoot better. Everything is in kyrie favor skill wise. But whatever u say fam.
This is from a fan who basically reacted to Mike James' take on who the most skilled scorers are and that was his answer. There is no doubt in my mind that Kyrie has one of the most complete scoring packages we have ever seen in the past decade. Names like Durant, Curry, Harden and most recently Dame often come to the discussion when it comes to scoring the basketball, but does Irving top the list? Mike James seem to think so, but let's put that to the test, shall we?
Shooting Accuracy
We all know the argument for Steph that he is one of the greatest shooters ever, but what if I'll tell you that we are still doing Steph a disservice to how good of a shooter he actually is. Using the metric called true shooting, Curry is third all time when it comes to that analytic. What does true shooting actually mean?
In basketball, true shooting percentage is an advanced statistic that measures a player's efficiency at shooting the ball. It is intended to more accurately calculate a player's shooting than field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and three-point field goal percentage taken individually.
To put this in perspective, centers like DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler, Artis Gilmore and Karl Anthony Towns are at the top of the list - those players take the most shots near or closer to the basket. Cedric Maxwell a forward is a ahead of Steph at number 2 has a true shooting of .6294, Curry is at number 3 with a true shooting of .6264.
Imagine that for a second, a guy whose shot attempts actually come from behind the three point line is top 3 all-time, isn't that absurd? That is how efficient Curry is, if you combine number of attempts and the percentage of him hitting his shots. He is ahead of Tyson Chandler, Artis Gilmore and Karl Anthony Towns. Where does Kyrie rank? A respectable 74. Not bad considering he is still ahead of great players such as Michael Jordan, Klay Thompson and Devin Booker but comparing him and Steph in the best shooting metric says that it's actually a lopsided victory for Steph.
Handles
This one is interesting. If you ask Allen Iverson who many fans think is one of the greatest ball handlers and ankle breakers ever, specifically said Kyrie and Curry have better handles than him. Whether that is true or not is not actually important right now, but piting Kyrie and Curry against each other is so let's dive right into it.
One of the things about Kyrie is he is able to dribble the ball high, near shoulder level which is one of the things basketball coaches or trainers discourages it's players from doing it's because it makes the dribble more susceptible to a steal or a mishandle. Doing this often misleads opposing players and confuse them when he is going to make his move. Why is that? Often in basketball training, students are taught one level of dribbling which on the mid level part of the body, right to the hip area. The other 2 levels like dribbling too low right to the knee area and right to the shoulder area is not widely taught nor encouraged. Mostly defenders are taught to defend dribblers who make their move when they position themselves dribbling in the mid area, but by dribbling the high area to the shoulder makes most defenders relaxed becaus it makes them think you are not yet ready to make your move but for Irving, his setup is dribbling high. It also allows Irving to anticipate or plan his moves. One of his moves is just shooting from a dribbling position, notice how the defender was a bit relaxed and only closed the distance once he went into shooting form. It's because dribbling too high gives them some sort of precognition that Irving will not attack yet then suddenly just shoots right on your face and you didn't see it coming.
Dribbling high also allows him to change speeds and pace to make him more unpredictable. Notice how high his dribbling is here despite going for the drive.
By dribbling high it makes him in near perfect position to either shoot the basketball or sell a defender, put defenses to sleep.
But Irving is also a master at dribbling middle and dribbling low which makes him virtually unguardable as an ISO scorer, like this sequence here where he shakes his main defender and a defender trying to switch by starting high then shifts levels all the way.
A master of the spin move, Irving has 360 mastery of the ball meaning he can literally turn to any direction and still maintain great control over the ball.
No doubt Kyrie's spin is one of the best in the NBA today and maybe even in NBA history. He also like to bait defenders using his lead foot, making them think that he is going to the right - then shifts position once he sees them biting on his strategy. While this tactic does seem common, nobody baits them as well as Kyrie does.
On thing you'll notice that unlike someone like Durant who by chance mishandles the ball during a crossover, you rarely see Kyrie making mistakes when doing his magic. He also reads the defense like a chessmaster and makes his move depending on the situation of the moment perfectly. That allows him to create separation from opposing defenders by either reading their hips or looking for where the strong or weak side is, thereby exploiting them.
Curry's ability to deceive defenders stems from a different reason, his ability to shoot from anywhere on the floor. While Kyrie freezes defenders by biting them to a particular direction, Curry fakes defenders into thinking he will shoot the ball with his handles - he is probably the only player I've ever seen do that. Because players know Curry has such a fast release, he can bait defenders into thinking he is going to shoot, usually positioning himself in or near the 3 point line and looking at the basket momentarily to further deceive the defender. Notice his eyes in the 2nd gif.
Curry also likes to reject screens, allows the defender into thinking he's going into it and once Curry sells the defender, rejects the screen to create confusion and misdirection.
He also likes to do behind the back moves, even sometimes consecutively to freeze defenders.
Curry is also very textbook - always dribbling the ball in the middle, making full use of the standard dribbling arsenal (behind the back, between the legs) if situation demands it. He rarely brings the ball up above the hips.
He also likes to use the momentum of his defenders against them.
Uses that same strategy to blow past defenders by moving the opposite direction on the fly.
He usually goes low when trying to bypass multiple defenders like Kyrie.
So to wrap this up, both Curry and Kyrie can get the job done with their handles but if talk about overall package I'm going with Kyrie as he is able to go on different levels with his dribbling whether it's high, middle or low and his 360 mastery of the ball is otherworldly!
Separation
Both like to use the patented step-back to create space with their shots. In relation to Curry's handles, he also likes to shoot while he seemed to in the middle of a crossover. Kyrie makes defenders relax, Curry makes defenders think he is going for the drive by hoisting the shot in the middle of his moves, Curry does this even when he does his signature behind the back dribble. This ability to fire a shot on the slightest moments of the separation is what separates him from the rest of his peers. I'll give this to Curry.
Finishing ability
Both are great finishers but Kyrie is something special when it comes to scoring near the hoop. His ability to jump on both legs is extremely rare and it gives him an option to jump for his left, his right or both.
His layup package is deep, somehow reminds us of Michael Jordan himself minus the elevation and hangtime. He can also hit floaters from both hands which is extremely difficult.
While Curry can do a layup on both hands too, I've yet to see him do a left hand floater (I might be wrong). Going into numbers actually favor Curry. While Kyrie has hit 59.7% of his shots from less than 5 ft. in 283 attempts in 2021. Playing only 20 games in the 2019-2020 season, his percentage from less than 5 ft. in 2018-2019 is 60.5% on 362 attempts. Curry on the otherhand, shot a more efficient 62.4% from less than 5 ft on 295 attempts and like Kyrie missed a significant bulk of the 2019-2020 season. His percentage from less than 5 ft in 2018-2019 is at 62.1% on 253 attempts.
Both Curry and Irving can finish thru traffic and contact at a really high rate. So to sum this up, I think this is a toss. Kyrie's finishing ability is predicated to pure wizardry and fluidity while Curry is craftier (in my opinion).