Dear Dr. O’Neal,

With all due respect, please shut up. Wardell Stephen Curry II is one of the greatest players ever to play the game of basketball. The greatest shooter of all time, who single-handedly changed the landscape of the modern NBA. A first-ballot Hall-of-Famer who’s made my life as a LeBron fan miserable for the past decade. But he is not the G.O.A.T. 

Not only is he not, but he was never anywhere near “the conversation” for that title. Frankly, the only ones that are putting him in that conversation are twelve-year-olds who started watching the NBA in 2017 and you, and even then, those twelve-year-olds know their sneakers are made by Michael Jeffrey Jordan. (Well, technically they’re made in a sweatshop in Vietnam, but you get my point).  

Listen here, Diesel, Shaqovic, The Big Aristotle, putting Curry in the G.O.A.T conversation would be like putting you in the G.O.A.T conversation. And I know you know, because you’ve said in the past, that your size-twenty-two-wearing-ass doesn’t belong in that conversation. Now, when it comes to the most dominant big man the league has ever seen, that conversation should be circulating one player and one player only: You. Similarly, when it comes to the most dominant player beyond the arc, Steph Curry should be the only player to ever get mentioned. Both of you dominated for years and became unstoppable forces in your respective fields that teams didn’t have an answer for. However, both your individual and team accolades fall shy of those who are actually “in the conversation.” 

LeBron, Jordan, and Kareem all have more regular-season MVPs, Finals MVPs, All-NBA selections, and All-NBA Defensive Team selections. Curry also has four championships, the same amount as you, but a couple short of Kareem and Jordan, and one fewer than Kobe, Tim Duncan, and Magic. You got a PhD, do the math, Superman. 

Now, in all seriousness, the G.O.A.T. conversation is a silly one. You can’t compare eras or players who never played against each other. Nevertheless, it’s a conversation that’s never going to cease to exist so long as fans of the sport exist. So if we must have the conversation, let’s at least try and be practical and fair, which, I know, is asking a lot. In my opinion, Steph Curry belongs right alongside you, Dr. O’Neal—in the top 10 somewhere alongside Tim Duncan and Larry Bird. But the G.O.A.T. conversation is and forever will be (at least until LeBron wins another chip) between His Airness, the King, and Cap.