The REAL Reason Steph isn't Passing Magic...

What if I could prove to you that Magic Johnson is closer to being the goat of basketball than he is to falling behind Steph Curry as the greatest point guard ever

Wouldn't that be magic? Welcome to the case for Magic Johnson. Alright, what's going on everyone? And welcome back to the home studio

So, if you're new here, I'm not a Steph Curry hater. In fact, I have Steph ranked 9th all-time ahead of guys like Kobe and Hakeem Olajuwon

So where I want to start this video is actually by defending Steph, because if you ask someone like Michael Jordan, who he thinks is the greatest point guard ever, or really a lot of old heads, their case is that Steph isn't actually even a point guard at all

Steph Curry is very close but not in front of Magic. You must define point guard to really have a serious debate

Steph Curry is by far the best shooter of all time. Yes, his movement has created many shots for his teammates

He's a career 43% three-point shooter. By the way, Magic has five NBA championships

Wow. That quote this morning at 545 was from Mr. Michael Jeffrey Jordan

Wow! And respectfully, I just think that's kind of a dumb argument

Because if we're going to play that game and say that Steph's not a point guard

well then I would argue LeBron James is. And then none of this matters because LeBron's the greatest point guard ever

End of discussion. Alright, so for like the next minute, we're just going to go band for band

you know, right hook for right cross, trading punches with these two in terms of the accolades

Because I think that's going to kind of just prove my point as is

Look, compared to Steph Curry, Magic Johnson has an extra MVP, an extra championship, two more finals MVPs, two more all-star appearances

Magic Johnson made nine first-team All-NBAs. Steph made four. Now, sure, you could go, hey, Steph won two scoring titles to Magic's none

But then I would counter and say that, well, Magic won four assist titles to Steph's none

In fact, Magic Johnson statistically has Steph beat in pretty much every single category other than shooting and scoring

But no shit, right? Like no one here is sitting and arguing that Magic was the better scorer or that Steph was the better all-around player

But that's what I think we kind of need to dig into. Because to me, in a vacuum, I don't think you can argue that Steph Curry was the better player than Magic Johnson

You got to remember, Magic Johnson was a legit 6'9 in an era where tall point guards were not a thing

He was the prototype. And therefore, he was a better rebounder than Steph

He was a better, I would say, all-around defensive player than Steph

Neither guy was great, but that's not here nor there. Magic was one of the greatest, if not the greatest playmaker of all time

He's maybe the best fast break player of all time. Magic could score in the post

Magic could just do more on a basketball court than Steph And it not like Magic couldn score I mean at his peak Magic was still putting up like 25 points a game So there this theory in basketball about floor raising versus ceiling raising It kind of a nerdy topic but it makes a lot of sense right

Where Magic Johnson, if you put him with a bunch of castaways in the NBA, would raise the floor of that team to at least like a playoff team

In a way that only maybe, you know, LeBron James and, I don't know, Tim Duncan and maybe Shaq could

But Steph can raise the ceiling of a team from fringe playoff team to contender

because his skill set fits in so easily with, you know, any star, any other players, and any system

But then again, Magic Johnson is and was the system of maybe the best system we've ever seen

So it kind of just comes down to what you want. But again, objectively, if we're looking at accolades and if we're looking at overall abilities on the court

to me, there's just no argument for Steph. The answer is Magic Johnson

That's the thing about playing in today's NBA, though. Like, you're not allowed to struggle

Everything is magnified. And I'm sure Steph feels a lot of pressure, you know

especially as he tries to chase Magic Johnson as the greatest point guard ever

to carry his team and live up to these expectations. I mean, even I feel that

I'm not saying I'm Steph Curry or anything, but hey man, everyone has their own battles

You know, as a YouTuber, not only do I have absurd expectations of myself

but like it's on me to carry the business. I don't have a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I don't have a safety net of a nine to five. And I think a lot of people can relate

to that sense of pressure, which is why I'm working with the sponsor of today's video, BetterHelp

BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy more comfortable and convenient. All you gotta do is fill out a questionnaire

and you will be matched with a therapist from BetterHelp's diverse network of over 30,000 licensed professionals

in as little as a couple of days. And hey, if the first therapist you connect with

isn't the right fit, then no problem. You can easily switch for free

It's that easy to improve your mental health. So click the link in my description

or go to betterhelp.com slash Fennec Shell for 10% off your first month of therapy

Now, before any Warriors fans click away, here's the case for Steph because basketball isn't science and it's not played in a vacuum

and there's a lot more to the goat case than just who's the better overall player. In fact

I think Kendrick Perkins actually had a great ogy. And when I think about Steph

I think about the way that he has changed the game forever. Forever. I get it. Magic 6'9"

Dish in the Rock, Showtime, I get all that. If you want to put magic there, that's your preference

It's just like people who want to drink Ciroc. Some people want to drink Ciroc

I like to drink Henderson. At the end of the day, they get you drunk. And you know what

It's a great point because for how different these two guys are as players on the court

clearly you can win championships and a lot of them with either guy as your number one So the case for Steph is really just like who even cares You know it like arguing that scrambled eggs are objectively better than sunny side up

Like, no, they're just the same thing in different forms that kind of serve different purposes

And you know what? They both taste pretty good at the end of the day. Side note, don't get it twisted

I'm a sunny side up guy all day. But yeah, the GOAT case for Steph is really more of like an impact on the game case

You know, Steph Curry obviously is the greatest shooter of all time

And his skill set is really something that we've never seen replicated

Some guys have some elements, you know. Trey Young can obviously shoot from deep

Same with a guy like Damian Lillard. We've seen guys increase their volume

But nobody is Steph Curry. There's a reason why Klay Thompson and how great of a shooter he is

just literally can't do what Steph does. It's the running around screens

It's the shooting off the dribble. It's the combination of all-time three-point shooting

with all-time handles. We've just never really seen a guy like Steph

and now every kid at the youth level wants to play like Steph

He is the ideal play style if you're just going and playing pickup at the park

When we're talking about the greatest players to ever play, You have to look at what they've done for the game

This is part of my argument against a guy like Kareem. I don't think Kareem really made any lasting impact on the top level of basketball

Steph has, and Steph has arguably more than anybody else. Steph is loved

You got to think like, I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area in middle school

I went to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade up in San Francisco

and when I was there this was like 2013 to 2015 this was when Steph Curry was exploding so I saw

it firsthand in the city how he like revolutionized the way people cared about basketball in the Bay

and then seeing it you know scale to nationwide status Steph Curry was like the biggest thing in

middle school keep in mind too I was still a Wizards fan still am to this day but like

I would show up to school trying to convince people that John Wall was better than Steph

At a certain point, I pretty quickly realized like, nah, Steph is kind of that dude and there

are levels to this. But again, if I was trying to make the case for Steph, I would say that

it's marginal who the better player was. It's marginal in terms of accolades and

Steph's impact on the sport of basketball, because also don't forget, Magic Johnson's impact on the game was massive too

He saved the ratings in the 80s after they tanked in the 70s

Magic was the most popular in the NBA in his era too. But in terms of like literally affecting how people play basketball

we've never seen anything like Steph Curry. And that should matter. But in the argument for the best point guard ever and the greatest point guard ever it still doesn matter enough Before we wrap this up I just wanted to give a few more notes and examples of like what really made Magic so great and why again I think there is just

no argument for anybody else to be the greatest point guard ever. So in 13 seasons in the NBA

Magic never missed the playoffs once. Think about that. And especially think about that

in comparison to someone like Steph Curry. He had maybe the greatest finals performance

ever as a rookie in 1980 NBA Finals against a loaded Dr. J Philadelphia 76ers team Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

goes down with an injury and rookie Magic Johnson steps up to play center and drops 42 points 15

rebounds 7 assists and 3 steals an absolutely just ludicrous performance to lead the Lakers to the

title that year. The 1987 Showtime Lakers have an argument to be the greatest team we've ever seen

I think people are pretty quick to throw the 2017 Warriors as the number one spot or the 96 Bulls

Fair enough. The 87 Showtime Lakers are right there in that conversation

Magic Johnson was their best player in the finals that year against the defending champs Celtics

and Larry Bird, Magic's biggest rival. Magic dropped 26 points, 8 boards, and 13 assists per game

as averages for the series to lead the Lakers to the chip

He, of course, had the game-winning hook shot in Game 4. And then even in 1990, in his second-to-last year in the league

he had back-to-back 40-point games against the Suns in the West Semis

Another cool stat, if you look at the 15 highest recorded assist games in NBA Finals history

Magic Johnson has 10 of them. I mean, this graphic that I'm popping up on the screen doesn't even look real

Look, I could go on and on with iconic moments and absurd performances by Magic Johnson

but yeah, you can do the same thing with Steph Curry. So I don't really want to waste too much time doing that

Instead, I'm just going to wrap it up here because I think this is sort of my theory about this entire debate

I think we love to play prisoner of the moment. And we love to, you know, kind of jump on board of what's new

And Steph Curry is the coolest new brand of basketball that we've seen

And yeah, in a lot of ways, like I might even rather have Steph on my team if I'm building like an ultimate team

because again like everything we've talked about he fits in with other stars better

but don't forget what Magic Johnson meant to this sport don't forget how good Magic Johnson was in

his prime don't forget how great Magic Johnson was for the Showtime Lakers in the 1980s that

is my argument and that is the case for Magic Johnson thank you guys so much for watching

This has been an absolute blast. Huge fan of both guys. So leave a comment what you guys think

Make sure to subscribe to the channel and peace out