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Oscar, Steph, and evaluating history in real time
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Oscar, Steph, and evaluating history in real time

The hoops community has spent the better part of the last two weeks wrestling with the comments Oscar Robertson made about Stephen Curry, the Warriors and the NBA as an institution. The crux of his argument is that basketball is different now, and the defensive and physical differences between now and his time had allowed for shooters like Curry to do things that weren’t possible when he played. Following his interview with Mike & Mike, the conversation exploded via a series of editorials explaining why Robertson was wrong.

For the most part, the commentary was fine, albeit predictable. Very little written was empirically wrong, but few failed to address the fact that Robertson wasn’t exactly wrong, either. This disconnect is simultaneously jarring and fascinating. There is validity on both ends of the continuum about physicality and rule changes and analytics, but our dissonant relationship to history-in-the-moment is so intangible, the truth forever remains in flux, verity is adjustable.

For the most part, answers aren’t important. This is a news story that offers very little meaning to the full account of the NBA. We’ll recount Robertson’s words anecdotally the next time one of yesterday’s stars is asked about today’s Warriors, and the current cycle will run a similar course. What is important is why this is a conversation in the first place: navigating history. Curry is following a historic NBA season with one in which he’s shattering records he set less than 365 days ago while shooting with an utterly confounding efficiency. Curry isn’t just the best shooter in the NBA’s history; he’s evolved into a new archetype that previous generations are struggling to make sense of. This is due in large part to how much he’s changed he's geometry of the game, according to Vice’s Seth Partnow.

“Curry destroys this geometry. Not literally: the lines don't move when he plays, and the hoop is still just 10 feet from the ground. But, at least, when the ball is in Curry's hands or he is in a position to receive it, the playable area of the floor—and all of the tactical and strategic decisions made within it—becomes instantly larger.”

Curry’s ability to expand the floor is a part of the evolutional journey that connects him to Robertson. Retracing the steps of how we got from Robertson to Curry is chaotic and convoluted because it requires more dimensionality than a simple linear route. Robertson can’t see himself in Curry because they’re separated by several decades, a plethora of rule changes and millions of iterations of the same basketball actions. The disconnect between yesterday’s stars and today’s brand of basketball isn’t necessarily about X’s and O’s, but more about a failed recognition of a lack of understanding of why the game has changed – and to an extent – an unwillingness to try to understand why that change was necessary.

Robert Silverman of The Daily Beast interviewed hoops historian Curtis Harris, who noted that game-redefining players "are clever and creative and quickly find ways to subvert the established orthodoxy. Basketball doesn't stand still.

“I'd say there's plenty of disrespect being thrown around because every generation of humanity is interested in defending its place in history."

While this is an issue across cultural verticals, the problem evoking this national conversation isn’t just the inherent generational divide between past and present styles of play, but our collective inability to evaluate historical significance in real time. Finding meaning with the aide of time is difficult enough, discovering the big-picture implications of games played today is nearly impossible. The number of variables that will define this Warriors team – and Steph Curry’s season – within the cannon of the NBA are yet to be determined. As indestructible as this team seems, four losses over a seven-game stretch could reduce the significance of this season tremendously.

Our relationship with history in the present has always been a struggle – from politics and war to music and literature – the now has and forever will be confounding because the later is always a mystery. James Baldwin wrote about this inherent struggle in his review of Richard Wright’s Native Son.

“Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such are given for heroism on the field of battle. Such a book, we felt with pride, could never have been written before – which was true. Nor could it be written today.”

This is such a pointed sentiment and completely encapsulates the struggle understanding Robertson’s era in relation to today. We’re trying to find sociological or philosophical answers to anthropological questions. To say Robertson is no longer a part of the story is the easy way out – but it’s also the wrong argument to make. History in its purest form cannot be re-written; we can only continue to add to an everlasting narrative. In 2016, Curry is the most fascinating part of the NBA’s history, but he exists only because of those who grew the game before him. If the growth of the game has taught us nothing else, it’s that Curry’s game in its current form just could not have existed 40 years ago for the same reasons there is no Oscar Robertson proxy today, and there likely won’t be a Curry double 40 years from now.

For coaches and players in the 60s, defending Robertson required a collective shift in defensive theory, and every team in the NBA was testing a thesis. The game grew because of what Robertson was able to accomplish as an individual, and stars with a slightly different style emerged because they were forced to deal with the new challenges coaches created out of trying to stop Robertson. These new stars created new challenges for coaches to deal with – and Curry is just one of the latest to sit on the notional teeter-totter. Each record Curry breaks will slough off another basketball-related limitation on a reality a lot more expansive than previously thought, and this expansion will bear ball players unique to their time much like Curry is now, and Robertson was during his era.

We’re in the midst of a fork in the road. Players from previous generations will continue to point toward the right because that’s the journey that led them to their great fortunes. This version of the Warriors took the left turn onto the road better suited for their vehicle – and because Curry is such a unique driver The tough, rugged cobblestone roads of the past aren’t friendly to the supercar flying down the paved highways of efficiency and long distance shooting. The rules of the road are different now, but it doesn’t make their success any better or any worse than the other great teams or players of the past.

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