Indiana Pacers: An honest comparison of Reggie Miller and Steph Curry

The case for Reggie Miller

If you were to just go by the career statistics line, Reggie Miller doesn’t look nearly as impressive as his legacy would suggest:

Career Statistics: 18.2 PT, 3.0 RB, 3.0 AST, 47.1 FG%, 39.5 FG3%

While these are certainly good numbers, they aren’t jump-off-the-page good numbers. So let’s dig a little deeper into the advanced metrics. If we look at league-adjusted numbers for Reggie’s career, we end up with the following:

Adjusted Career Statistics: 102 FG%, 114 FG3%, 281 3PAR% (3 pt attempt rate), 126 FTR% (free attempts per field goal) 

The story here begins to look much better for Reggie Miller, who clearly stood out among his peers. He shot nearly 3 times as many threes as the average NBA player, and made them a whopping 14% more often.

While his numbers don’t always look impressive in the modern NBA, you had to admit, that these numbers are pretty awesome when you compare Reggie to his peers. And the case for Reggie Miller doesn’t stop there.

What also contributes to the legacy of Reggie Miller is his ability to hit shots in the biggest moments. Jeff Kowalsky of ESPN writes:

"In the final nine seasons of his career (regular season and playoffs), Miller made 142 three-pointers in crunch time, 54 more than the next closest player in that time period."

Nobody, and we mean nobody, was as clutch or relied upon in the final minutes as Reggie Miller. And much of this doesn’t show up in the regular stats.

And not that it matters too much, but Reggie’s acting and trash talking would be next-level in this era of players flopping.