If you’ve watched the Warriors play on national television or read any number of articles by any number of basketball writers, you’ve read or heard some sort of amalgamation of “playing like a video game” in comparison to Steph Curry. But here’s the thing: people who play simulation basketball video games would never stand for Steph’s shenanigans.

 

The moment any number of some of Steph’s ill-advised, downright terrible shots went in, many would be screaming “LAZY DEVS!” or “THIS GAME’S BROKEN” or would immediately head into the sliders menu to start tweaking things.

 

People at Operation Sports understand that sometimes the absurd and unlikely does actually happen in the NBA, which is why this thread in the NBA 2K forum is one of my favorites in a very long time. The “If This Would Have Happened In 2K Thread” is great because it encompasses all the absurd ways video game players would speak out against the NBA if it were happening in a video game. 

 

Of course, it’s all meant to be tongue-in-cheek comments, but it’s also a not-so-subtle way to point out that all the ways we try to control our video game experiences via sliders and difficulty levels and so on still fly in the face of how great players and teams can make us all look like fools for trying to be overbearing, stat-obsessed loons when we have a controller in our hands.  

 

But this is not about the rest of the NBA, this is about the man who owns the NBA right now: Steph Curry. So after the jump, let’s chat more about Curry and how he would make you rage quit your favorite NBA video game.

 

Now, perhaps broadcasters and sportswriters say Steph is playing like a video game right now because there’s really no other way to describe the way he’s playing this season. His efficiency is unfathomable right now, and when taking into account the amount of shots he’s taking, there’s a very real and legitimate reason to claim he’s having the best offensive season since the three-point line and the modern NBA were born. 

 

No, seriously his True Shooting Percentage is 70, and he’s doing that on 20-plus shots a night! Even big men, where their only purpose is to dunk the basketball and never shoot otherwise, don’t put up a True Shooting Percentage of 70. And it’s not like he’s taking uncontested shots, or even “smart” shots a lot of the time. Steph Curry is becoming the master of the “bad shot, bad shot, [ball swishes through the net], good shot Steph!”  

 

And you know, I could throw more stats at you like how Curry is making more three pointers than some NBA teams, or how he shoots the most shots from 25-29 feet (FYI, top of the key three-point line is 23.9 feet) and is still the most efficient from that range, but let’s just talk about how Steph would break video games via some GIFs.

 

(And all thanks goes to FreeDawkins for uploading highlights to YouTube after NBA games end.)

 

 

The Situation: The Warriors are down three with under four minutes to go. Steph blitzes up the court after getting the rebound, and fires up a 24-foot shot with Lowry in his grill and Scola trailing from behind. He stops on a dime to fire up this contested shot; he’s also off balance, but of course the shot goes in.

 

In Video Game Terms: This is like a random room guy you play who panics because he finally lost the lead and now feels like he has to tie it up as soon as possible. You know exactly what he wants to do because many random room NBA 2K players grab the ball and speed ahead because they don’t usually know how to run an offense. So to avoid forcing up a terrible shot at the end of the shot clock, the best chance these folks have to get an open shot is speed up the court and fire one up before you can user to the ball handler and get in defensive stance. But that's not what happened here, you did everything right and forced the bad shot.

 

Then the ball swishes through the net and you scream out any number of obscenities while thinking “IT TAKES NO SKILL TO EVEN DO THAT, ALL YOU DID WAS TURBO UP THE COURT AND PRESS THE SHOOT BUTTON!” Then you probably bounce back and still win because, again, it’s a video game and that shot is not usually going to go in like it will in real life when Steph shoots it.  

 

 

The Situation: Steph gets the steal and tries to go for the fast break. Z-Bo gets in his way and forces Steph to lose his handle. A defender (Russ Smith) dives for the loose ball, but Steph picks it up and then speeds towards the three-point line. Steph then senses contact and throws up the ball doing one of those I-think-a-call-is-coming-let-me-chuck-this-towards-the-rim-not-because-I-think-I’ll-actually-get-free-throws-but-just-for-kicks shots, only the foul call never comes and the shot goes in anyway.

 

In Video Game Terms: You had fat fingers during this entire sequence. You got the steal and then started speeding up the court trying to get a fast break. Only you didn’t expect the guy you were playing against to start spamming the steal button, which causes you to panic and you go for the behind the back Isomotion move, but you can’t do that in traffic at all anymore.

 

At this point the ball comes free, and the other defender presses the steal button again, which initiates a hustle action this time as he dives for the loose ball. But he misses on the dive, and now you have the ball back and you’re stunned you even have it. You pull up the icon passing setup, but totally forget that your small-ball lineup is in, so you’re pressing the shot button thinking Iguodala is at the small forward spot, only he’s at the power forward spot. The icons eventually go down by themselves and you keep smashing the shot button and flick up this magical whoopsie.  

 

 

The Situation: Steph gets the steal and knows there’s little time left on the clock before the end of the third quarter. So he takes a couple dribbles and then gathers to fire off the shot from deep in the Grind House. He sticks it, and this is just minutes after the previous miraculous shot where he thought he was going to be fouled.   

 

In Video Game Terms: You didn’t actually think anything good would come of this because these shots never go in anymore in NBA 2K, but it’s the end of the quarter so you shoot it up out of habit. The shot goes in, and you think man this new patch seems to have made it so you can finally hit some end-of-quarter shots. You then head on to the OS Forums to see a 42-page thread about how the new patch has totally imbalanced end-of-quarter heaves; it is now the new end-of-shot-clock cheese. 

 

 

The Situation: Curry is bored. I mean, he’s just bored, right? Golden State is up 12 as they near the end of the half. This is on the second night of a back to back for the Warriors, and they just had an intense game against the Raptors the night before. Steph is looking to take the heart out of Brooklyn here, while also getting the fans in Brooklyn even more on his side (Nets fans were cheering for Curry like he was one of their own). He drills the 29-foot shot because, why not? (Brooklyn would actually take the lead in the third before getting demolished). 

 

In Video Game Terms: There are two likely outcomes here, but either way, you’re taking no pity on the random player who decided to go at your three-star squad with his one-star Nets.

 

-The first option here is that you decided to just start messing with this online user by testing what the Limitless Range badge was really all about. If he quit in anger in the process, so be it.

 

-The second option is you were trying to ease your way up to the three-point line while coming off the pick and roll. Only, as with every NBA 2K before it, you battled the controls a bit to try and move your feet towards the three-point line with finite movement and ended up launching before you really got your feet where you wanted them. At the end of the day, you maybe still ended up hitting on the first scenario as you noticed the Limitless Range badge really does work, and your opponent also immediately paused and quit the game.

 

 

Simply put, Steph Curry is making video games seem boring and "too real" at this point. It's actually come to that.