{"id":552427,"date":"2026-01-22T04:22:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/552427\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T04:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:22:19","slug":"stephen-currys-greatness-highlighted-by-rick-barrys-anomaly-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/552427\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Curry’s greatness highlighted by Rick Barry’s ‘anomaly’ take"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 37 years old, Stephen Curry<\/a> has a major challenge ahead of him. The Golden State Warriors<\/a> lost Jimmy Butler to a torn ACL against the Miami Heat, ending his 2025-26 season, and the team is reportedly looking into trades ahead of the NBA’s deadline in early February. Outside of a marquee acquisition, much of the burden will fall on Curry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a recent radio interview on the Infinity Sports Network before Butler’s injury<\/a>, Warriors franchise legend Rick Barry<\/a> made clear that Curry might be the exact kind of player who could handle such a monumental challenge. The Hall of Famer told SiriusXM NBA Radio’s David Shepard that Curry is unlike any other player in the league’s history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis guy’s in a class by himself\u2026Steph Curry is, like, an anomaly. There’s never been anyone like him, down the road hopefully somebody will come along that I can enjoy as much as I’ve watched Steph Curry and enjoyed him,\u201d Barry told Shepard.<\/p>\n

Curry’s averaging 27.1 points and 5.1 assists per game through the first 35 games of his 17th season in the league. The other most defining star of this era, LeBron James, is still throwing down tomahawks at 41 years old. Curry, however, is right behind him. The four-time champion has made 38.7% of his 3-point looks this season, despite attempting 11.5 per game.<\/p>\n

Barry reveals why Curry is \u201ca class above\u201d other Splash Brother\"GoldenCary Edmondson-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Barry also made an interesting reference to Klay Thompson, now of the Dallas Mavericks, when explaining just how special Curry is. The big man, who won Finals MVP for the Warriors<\/a> in 1975, didn’t put Thompson down, but he did tell Shepard how the player who won 2022’s Finals MVP for Golden State has set himself apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s amazing. He’s an anomaly\u2026There’s never been a guard like Steph Curry before in the history of the NBA,\u201d Barry noted. \u201cNever. Nobody that plays the game the way he plays, because of his range, his shooting ability, and it’s not just, you know, shooting. Because a guy that can shoot the h*ll out of it, his teammate for so many years, of course- the Splash Brothers. They’re not the same player. Steph is all around. Steph can create, do stuff on his own with the ball,\u201d Barry remarked of Curry and Thompson.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 25-20, the Warriors are in sole possession of the Western Conference’s eighth seed. A midseason acquisition would go a long way in what could be one last championship pursuit for Curry. Regardless, the team will go as far as he takes them for the rest of the year. Barry seems to think that could still be far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 37 years old, Stephen Curry has a major challenge ahead of him. The Golden State Warriors lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,498,6,24885,573,255],"class_list":["post-552427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golden-state-warriors","tag-basketball","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-goldenstate","tag-goldenstatewarriors","tag-klay-thompson","tag-nba","tag-rick-barry","tag-stephen-curry","tag-warriors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115936844847833130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}