Lowell Cohn: Get over it, old timers, Warriors’ Stephen Curry is great

Jim Barnett was searching for a word about Stephen Curry. He and Tim Roye had talked about Curry’s play, how revolutionary it is, and they came up with the perfect adjective. But, darn, it escaped Barnett.

We were on the phone, me back from a two-week vacation. While I was away, Oscar Robertson and Phil Jackson had gone off on Curry, put him down. Robertson was an all-time great player. In 1960-61, he averaged a triple double, Robertson strong, backing up guards in the paint and shooting over them.

Jackson was a goofball player with elbows flying all over the place. Looked like a chicken on the hardwood, mostly was a backup for the Knicks, a role he was good at. But he was a great coach, and his opinion and Robertson’s opinion matter.

To an extent.

They know ball, but they suffer from two things: 1) Envy of the modern game that has passed them by. And, yes, it passed Jackson by. Look at his awful Knicks. 2) Curry Bewilderment. They don’t get Curry, leading the league in scoring with 30.7 points a game and leading the league with 288 3-pointers, an NBA record that increases every time he plays.

Here’s what Robertson said on radio. Think of a man who believes what he did and when he did it were the pinnacles. Old-style mind:

“I just don’t think coaches today understand the game of basketball. They don’t know anything about defenses. They don’t know what people are doing on the court. They talk about analytical basketball and stuff like that.

“They double-teamed me an awful lot during my career. I look at games today, and they’ll start a defense at the foul line. When I played, they were picking you up when you got the ball inbounds. So it’s a different strategy about playing defense.”

On Curry: “He’s shot well because of what’s going on in basketball today. There have been some great shooters in the past. But here again, when I played, if you shot a shot outside and hit it, the next time I’m going to be up on top of you. I’m going to pressure you with three-quarters, half-court defense. But now they don’t do that. These coaches do not understand the game of basketball.”

Never trust a man who prefaces his remarks with “When I played.” Oscar, no one cares about when you played. Today’s players probably don’t know your name. You want to feel relevant but comments like these consign you to irrelevance.

Here’s what Phil Jackson tweeted: “Never seen anything like SCurry? Remind you of Chris Jackson/ Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who had a short but brilliant run in NBA?”

Phil, you’re comparing Curry to freaking Abdul-Rauf. Really? Who is Abdul-Rauf and are you saying Curry will have a short career?

Understanding he had embarrassed himself, Jackson wrote this follow-up tweet. “How does commenting on Rauf mean I’m comparing him to Curry? Remind, yes, quick release, cross over, Yep, MVP, nope. Get a grip”

Dude, you’re the one who needs a grip. You knew what you were tweeting, and then you took back your words and looked even more foolish.

Robertson and Jackson exhibit the jealousy the previous generation often feels for the present generation. Fathers jealous of sons. Bad look.

Barnett still couldn’t find the word.

About Robertson and Jackson, Barnett said, “I disagree 100 percent. Stephen Curry would be great in any era. Great players would be great in any era. Oscar, Wilt (Chamberlain), Jerry (West) would be great in any era. Michael Jordan? Can you imagine someone saying Michael Jordan could not play today? It’s absurd.”

After Curry beat the Thunder last Saturday with a 37-foot 3-pointer in the last second of overtime, Barnett tweeted: “OK, Oscar I love you but I hope you’ve had an epiphany now! Stephen Curry IS the all time greatest shooter! No one stops him!!”

“It’s hard to find words to describe Curry,” Barnett told me.

Still searching for the word.

“I have no idea why people like Oscar and Phil do it,” Barnett said. “Oscar still believes he was better than Michael Jordan. Oscar believes he was the greatest all-around player. I can’t understand why he’d want to denigrate someone today. You could put the greatest defender in the history of the league on Curry. All that has to happen is the defender gets bumped by a screen by Andrew Bogut or Draymond Green just slightly, Curry gets an extra half second and, guess what, the play is over. And that’s that. He is indefensible.

“I was six years behind Oscar. In our era, we didn’t double team. I don’t understand where Oscar says our defense would pick Curry up at half court. Today, they pick him up at half court. They blitz him. Grab and hold him away from ball. Today, it is more difficult to score. There’s more help on defense. Once I got a screen and drove, I never worried about forwards or guards. Just the center in the lane. I think defense is tougher. I could not score as much now. I used to finish nine of 10 times inside. Now, I’d kick it out.

“We played team offense and individual defense. Today, it’s more individual offense and team defense. Just the opposite. I think if there had been a 3-point line in the 60s, Curry would have averaged 40 points a game. It’s ridiculous for them to say what they’re saying.

“And Abdul-Rauf, why bring him up? It’s so unnecessary. Of course, people take it the wrong way. You can’t compare them because there’s no comparison. It’s scary how good Curry is. Almost like divine intervention or magic dust.

“And there’s this. Stephen is going to change basketball. He’s going to spawn a new generation of players. ‘I don’t need to be 6-8. I can be 6-2. I can do fundamental things really well and become good.’”

Barnett paused. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what Tim and I were saying. Stephen is transformative. That’s the word we used, transformative. He’s a player like the NBA has never seen.”

I was glad Barnett found his word and I agreed with it. Stephen Curry is truly transformative. Oscar Robertson and Phil Jackson should look it up.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.