Trade idea with Portland

and miller gives us a point guard in his twilight years

Curry, Reggie, and Monta is just as solid of a backcourt – less defensive output but much more offensive production. either way, i dont think itd make much of a difference

Miller would be great to have!
he may only have a few more years left in the tank, but he is exactly the type of crafty PG that could teach Steph a thing or two

Many people are either incapable or uninterested in understanding the distinction between whether someone is good or bad (which is an objective quality of the player’s skill) and whether you like them or not (which is a subjective evaluation which is really about the observer, not the observed).

That’s why you see a lot of generic complimentary terms given to players who they absolutely don’t apply to. For example, people often use “consistent” as a compliment for a player they like. Many good players are consistent … but not all of them. (And Monta, for example, would be a clear example of a good player who is nowhere near consistent).

It’s also why you see people attacking, say, Biedrins’ work ethic – despite the fact that we have no evidence for such a statement (and some evidence against it). Biedrins is having a bad year. Ergo, you don’t like him. Ergo, all bad objective descriptions apply to him.

 that the “stats geek” comeback got deleted – it was just such a great inidcator for the level of analytical sophistication that we are looking at here

also, it took down a longer response from me essentially saying that the definition of “best player” is really the main problem here (I think)

from a statistical standpoint, there is really no argument that Steph is superior in pretty much every category.

But some fans care about stuff like: Monta plays the most minutes (for a few years now), carries our offense (for better or worse) most nights, and usually has more highlights (other examples here would definately be Kobe and Melo).

You cannot defeat that view with a statistical argument.
Untill Steph beats Monta at 1-on-1 in a YouTube video, then this argument (if it can even be called that) will continue to rage.

It’s not pointless when there is visible and viable argument that he is.

Well, the board is still waiting for you to make such an argument.

I’ll try and say this as simply as I can. The only "STAT" that anyone here really cares about is Warriors’ wins and losses.

At the same time, there are lots of other individual stats that have been showed, time and time again, to correlate extremely closely with the stat of team wins and losses.

If you want to argue that Monta’s the "best" player (on the Warriors, in the world, etc.) from an aesthetic standpoint, that’s totally cool.

If you want to argue that Monta contributes better than anyone else on the team to winning games, you have to do so while ignoring all the available evidence.

Ignoring all available evidence — i.e. clinging to the belief that one’s own subjective view trumps all available evidence — is kind of sad, in my opinion. And, maybe more importantly, it’s not very conducive to interesting discussion on a board like this.

one of the things that is hailed about Golden State league wide is the absolute geekiness of their fans – TS percentages and stats per minute are not things the average enthusiast should know. so its really hard to get a point across with GSOMers, (especially with the likes of GSC, Missing Barry, and Sleepy Frued – I mean this in the best way possible you guys are basketball geniuses) as much as I love Monta myself and hope desperately he stays a Warrior for life, it is true that Steph on paper does more for the team than Monta does. He gets us closer to winning, and there’s no arguing that.

but

does that make him the best player? or better than Monta? Statistically, he is the better guard. But there’s so much more to being the “best” (although it should never be a competition within a team) than just plain good stats.

I still hail Monta as the best not simply because of his above average stats, but moreso his leadership abilities, willingness to carry the team when needed, and his transformation into the face of this franchise (as of right now). Steph has yet to do any of the above (though i have no doubt in my mind that steph curry will soon transform into a nightly name on Sportscenter in a couple of years).

get my point?

We know that there are certain traits which tend to cause us to overrate players.

The tendency to make highlight worthy plays, for example. The tendency to get a lot of steals, if it comes at the expense of positionally sound defense. The tendency to score a lot at low efficiency.

We know – with no reference to Monta – that these things tend to raise our subjective view of players more than is rationally justifiable.

Therefore, it’s probably worth considering that our subjective opinion of Monta is probably a little high.

But, of course, some of this gets to the definition of “best.”

Monta might be the “most talented” Warrior. I don’t agree, but I understand the argument. Does “best” = “most talented?” Is what what you mean by best?

And some people mean “best” to mean “most exciting.” In this case, I might even agree with you, Monta is quite possibly our best player.

On the other hand, a fair number of us use “best” to mean “does the most to contribute to winning.”

And by that metric, it is very, very hard to justify that Monta is our best player, because he rebounds so poorly and misses so many shots. And your subjective opinion (and you’re hardly the only person on this board who played basketball in college, so your appeal-to-authority argument isn’t going to carry a lot of weight here) really, well, since it appears to fall into so many common evaluation traps, well, just does’t seem to mean very much.