Top 3 qualities which separate Golden State Warriors leading scorer Steph Curry from the archetype NBA point guard

Steph Curry continues to dazzle at an age when most players would be coming toward the end of their NBA careers. Not for the Golden State Warriors star, however. Against the Denver Nuggets on Monday night, Curry put up a historic 53 points on his opponents and propelled his side to an important win in their chase of a playoff berth.

Fans and the media alike are running out of superlatives to describe the free-scoring point guard who, in his 12th season, is averaging a career-high 30.4 points per game.

Seeing Steph Curry's name pop up in the lineups as a point guard prior to these fixtures can be misleading at times though. The 33-year-old has shown throughout his career that he is not the archetypal floor general the NBA is used to. Instead, he has led a new wave of two-guards who have made long-range shooting efficient and effective.

This article will delve into what makes Steph Curry so special and how he has revolutionized the way point guards are seen in the NBA today.

How Steph Curry is different from the traditional NBA point guard

Everybody knows about Steph Curry's scoring capacity. However, there are countless assets to his game that make him stand out as one of the greatest players of the modern era, if not in NBA history.

He has helped to redefine what it can mean to be a point guard in a championship-winning team and that taking long-range shots is valuable. He is one of the most enjoyable players to watch and is still proving he can shoot the ball at the elite rate he has throughout his career.

Let's take a look at what makes Steph Curry so special and why he is not the traditional point guard.

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#1 High-volume shooting

Steph Curry won his second 3-point contest this year

Steph Curry has taken 8.4 three-point attempts per game throughout his career and has sunk 43.3% of them. He ranks 7th on the All-time scoring list from downtown, although four of the players ranked above were low percentage shooters (taking less than 2.5 three's per game). In short, he has made shooting the three-ball desirable.

Curry can be thanked for ushering in an era of scorers where taking a high-volume of long-range efforts every game is acceptable and can be used as a weapon against opponents. Of the top-50 total three-pointers made in a season, only 14 of the players listed did so before 2013, the first year that Steph Curry entered the list.

He has made over 260 threes every year since and is on course to do the same this campaign. If he keeps up his rate of 4.9 made attempts per night, he will only need to play eight of the Warriors' remaining 18 fixtures to make his regular tally.

You Are Witnessing History 🤩With this shot, @StephenCurry30 is now the ONLY player to make 200+ three pointers in 8 seasons.📽️- @warriors #OnlyHere pic.twitter.com/YTywfJOCYQ

— NBAIndia (@NBAIndia) April 7, 2021

Curry has made it admissible to pull up off the dribble from 30-feet and launch a shot at the basket, considering he makes close to half of the attempts. This has led to even more scorers breaking out as they lead their side's offensive attempts per matchup.

Damian Lillard, James Harden and Donovan Mitchell, among others, are all high-volume shooters yet are the focal point of their team's offense. Akin to Curry, they aren't necessarily point guards but are more relatable as a two-guard, averaging 25+ points per night on 20+ field goal attempts.

Meanwhile, you have more traditional point guards, the likes of Chris Paul, Dennis Schroder and Mike Conley, who this season are all averaging around 12 field-goal attempts per matchup.

#2 Movement without the ball

Steph Curry is often picked up well outside the three-point line by defenders

It's not just what Steph Curry can do with the ball that causes defenses headaches, but also what he can do without it. This has particularly been the case this season when Curry is the go-to-guy in the Warriors offense without fellow splash brother Klay Thompson on the wing to draw away opposition players.

Curry is regularly double-teamed and has mastered the art of drawing offensive fouls at the three-point line and when going to the cup. Steph Curry has drawn 107 shooting fouls this season, only one short of his last full campaign in 2019 when he played 23 more games than what he is currently at.

Steph Curry is the sort of player that will never stop running on offense. He is a defender's nightmare and is happy to run off his man, allow his teammate to set a screen and immediately take a catch-and-shoot three. Out of catch-and-shoot attempts this season, Steph Curry makes 43.4% of efforts from the field and 42.3% from downtown.

D-Wade says Steph Curry is most dangerous when he's running off-ball. pic.twitter.com/0CTMG2k61b

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 28, 2020

Because defenses are constantly hounding him, Curry has had to work much harder to make himself open to get his shot off. There's a reason why he took almost 7 fewer seasons than Reggie Miller to reach his three-point tally and that is due to running roughly 2.5 miles every night on the floor just to get open shots.

#3 Focusing less on assists

Steph Curry with his teammates

There is no doubt Steph Curry is a great passer of the ball and is the first player to get hyped for his teammates on and off the court. However, his serial scoring and movement have meant he doesn't necessarily fit the mould of an offensive creator or floor general such as Chris Paul or Rajon Rondo.

In fact, he hasn't averaged more than 7 assists in a season since 2015 and has averaged 6.6 in his career, at least 1.5 less per season than both Paul and Rondo. Curry has taken the focus away from running the offense through dribbling and intricate passing toward fast-paced, catch-and-shoot plays.

This year, the Golden State Warriors rank 6th for fast break points percentage and ranked 1st in the same category from the 2014-15 season until the 2017-18 one. Not only do they profit from the fast break, the Warriors also rank second for pace among teams this campaign. Steph Curry has the ability to pull up from wherever he wants rather than wait to find the perfect open shot.

Curry has had to take the brunt of the offensive load this season, therefore it is understandable that his assists per game are below his career average. However, what he doesn't put up in the box score, he makes up for by providing his team instead with the points required to stay in the playoff hunt.