Golden State Warriors legend Stephen Curry made headline news on Saturday by scoring 60 points at an advanced NBA age (35). Evidently, this brought up the topic of Kobe Bryant and his final-regular season NBA game back in 2016—when he scored 60 points, as well, at an even more-advanced age (37). They are the only 2 players in league history to score 60 points after turning 35 years old. But the mediots missed it.

It’s well known we have proven Bryant’s complete overrated nature here, and Curry plays for our hometown team (er, well, when it was in Oakland, at least). Yet what we do here is always objective and defended logically so. Thus, here we go again: the mediots ignored a key comparison while rushing to push these stars’ names for clickbait. To wit? It only took Curry 38 shots to reach 60, but Kobe needed 50 shots.

What is funnier is that they both converted 22 shots from the floor—but in typical fashion, Bryant had a lot more missed shots, and it had nothing to do with three-point attempts, either:

  • Curry: 12-0f-15 from 2-point range; 10-of-23 from 3-point range; 6-of-6 from the free-throw line.
  • Bryant: 16-0f-29 from 2-point range; 6-of-21 from 3-point range; 10-of-12 from the free-throw line.

This has little to do with the age difference, as these trends are consistent with the lifelong statistical profiles of each player. In every facet of shotmaking, Curry is superior, and this makes sense. No one will ever argue that Bryant was a better shot than Curry; the myth of Bryant’s legacy lies in this “Black Mamba” garbage that is illogical in the face of statistics and the sheer volume of his scoring—which is the issue here.

Bryant’s poor shooting percentages belie the argument he was a “closer” or whatever: if for whatever reason Kobe was “better” in “the clutch”? His overall numbers would simply mean he was outright fucking lousy for the first 43 minutes of a game—if he was allegedly so good in the final 5 minutes (or whatever the dumb argument is). When his overall numbers scream complete inefficiency, the pro-Kobe logic just falls apart.

See what we mean? Comparing Curry’s 60 to Kobe’s 60 screams false analogy immediately, yet the sports mediots pushed this narrative for a few days: why? Basically, because the mediots know their target audience really doesn’t think that deeply about much of anything. They just put together stories that will drive Internet traffic and increase advertising revenue; it never means those are “true” stories, of course.