The quarantine has everybody saying things that we are probably not going to hold them to in the long run. And given the lack of sports we’ve had for such a long time, folks are going to be more prone to hyperbole than usual. Such was the case on Sunday night when Maverick Carter, LeBron’s business partner and co-founder of UNINTERRUPTED and SpringHill Entertainment, suggested that Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry would “have trouble” guarding him during the UNINTERRUPTED “After Party” show following the first episodes of “The Last Dance.”
During that show, Curry’s teammate Draymond Green also used an example from the show of Michael Jordan playing Danny Ainge in golf during a playoff series as an example that the NBA wasn’t as “cutthroat” as people say it was in the 80s and 90s. Then Carter, in trying to talk about team building and relating it to Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Bulls, suggested that Stephen Curry’s defense is so poor he’d have trouble guarding him.
“If I’m the best at doing my thing, I need the other people to clear the way so I can do my thing. So Scottie (Pippen) took care of everything else. They brought up those stats. Scottie was second in rebounds, second in points, first in steals, blah blah blah.
“It’s just like the Warriors — the world knows Steph (Curry) can’t f–king play defense. I’m 38 — haven’t played a decent game of basketball in 18 years — Steph would have trouble guarding me.
“But Steph is the greatest shooter in the world. When that motherf–ker gets rolling you can’t stop him — he can hit any shot from anywhere on the court.
Obviously, Carter is clearly exaggerating. And I’m not going to hold him too hard to things he said after likely having a few glasses of 1942 during “The Last Dance.” But he did say it. However, if it was that serious, Green likely would have taken a lot more offense to the notion that Curry is a poor defender. While it may have been true early in his career, Curry is not a liability on defense. It’s hard to impossible to have an All-Time defense like the Warriors had over the previous five seasons with a “bad” defender.
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