ESPN's ongoing #NBArank countdown of the top players of all time presented what you might call the Stephen Curry problem: how to handle active players in the rankings, which incorporate both peak value and longevity.
Curry is perhaps the quintessential example. The Golden State Warriors star has an MVP and a championship on his résumé but precious little else. Because Curry is in his seventh NBA season, he just recently surpassed 10,000 career points, meaning he's closing in on passing the likes of Larry Hughes (10,242) on the all-time scoring list.
One way to evaluate Curry: Would he be a Hall of Famer if he announced his immediate retirement to become a full-time Carolina Panthers superfan?
And more generally, we should ask: Was he overrated by #NBArank voting? What about James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love? Were they overrated as well?
With the help of my championships added metric, which naturally rewards players both for how great their peak is and how long they contribute to their teams, let's take a look at some notable cases.
Overrated
Stephen Curry
Position: PG
#NBArank: 23rd
Championships added: 0.62 (66th)
Let's take the Hall of Fame question first. Would Curry make it based solely on his body of work to date? I'd say yes.
His abbreviated career would be similar to those of players such as Bill Walton (who's in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame) and Yao Ming (who is not yet eligible but is likely to make it).
To date, every eligible NBA MVP has been voted a Hall of Famer. If his career continues down the current path, Derrick Rose might test that rule of thumb, but Curry likely would not because of his high peak. He has established himself as the best player in basketball in a way Rose never did during his MVP season.
However, the #NBArank panel might have been a bit hasty in putting Curry among the top 25 players of all time. Championships added puts him 66th, and even if we give him preemptive credit for another MVP this year, Curry would have a hard time getting any higher than about 30th.
He simply doesn't yet have the longevity necessary to be a top-25 player, having made the All-Star team just three times in his career.
Russell Westbrook
Position: PG
#NBArank: 49th
Champs added: 0.38 (129th)
Westbrook's case is similar to Curry's, though he has yet to hit the same heights. Westbrook has been a key contributor longer, making five All-Star games, but has yet to make an All-NBA first team -- something that will almost certainly change this season.
At his current pace, Westbrook probably would jump into the top 75 after this season. Putting him in the top 50 still requires projecting future success.
Tony Parker
Position: PG
NBArank: 58th
Champs added: 0.51 (88th)
Carmelo Anthony
Position: SF
#NBArank: 59th
Champs added: 0.49 (97th)
Parker and Anthony coming out better in #NBArank probably has less to do with being active players than the fact that they get more subjective credit than their win shares might suggest.
Anthony ranks about where he ended up on the list in terms of championships added based on awards (66th), and Parker might look better if he got a bonus in championships added for winning Finals MVP in 2007 to go along with one of his four championship rings as a starting point guard.
Blake Griffin
Position: PF
#NBArank: 75th
Champs added: 0.37 (136th)
In his sixth season, Griffin is the least experienced player to crack the #NBArank top 100, so it's no surprise there's some projection at play. Though Griffin has been a consistent contributor since debuting in the NBA, making five All-Star appearances before that streak was ended by injury this season, he has yet to submit the kind of dominant season necessary to make up for his short career.
Kevin Love
Position: PF
#NBArank: 99th
Champs added: 0.24 (201st)
Strictly based on regular-season performance, Love would rank 98th in championships added -- almost precisely where the #NBArank panel placed him. Alas, because of last season's shoulder injury, Love has yet to add any championship value in the playoffs, making it hard to put him in the top 100 midway through his career.
Underrated
Dwight Howard
Position: C
#NBArank: 67th
Champs added: 1.01 (36th)
Being an active player probably hurt Howard. A few years after he retires, it will be easier to see how dominant Howard was in his prime for the Orlando Magic.
From 2007-08 through 2011-12, Howard was an All-NBA first team pick every year (his total of five puts him in a tie with a group headlined by Charles Barkley for 19th all time) and won three NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards.
He was surely hurt in the voting by his reputation for off-court immaturity, which didn't prevent the Magic from getting to the 2009 NBA Finals and winning 59 games in consecutive seasons.
James Harden
Position: SG
#NBArank: 97th
Champs added: 0.61 (67th)
The other active player most underrated by voters is Howard's teammate for the Houston Rockets, whose slow start to this season probably didn't help matters.
Before this year, Harden's résumé was strikingly similar to Curry's. The two 2009 lottery picks finished one-two in MVP voting last season, and Harden had provided more career value coming into 2015-16. Though he won't move up this year nearly as much as Curry, Harden could land in the top 50 in championships added.
The verdict
For the most part, the #NBArank panel did a good job of valuing current players. I didn't list the players who were appropriately rated because there were simply too many -- the majority of the 22 active players in the #NBArank top 100 had reasonable rankings.
Generally speaking, the panel treated players near the end of their career as if they were retired, which makes sense given that they're unlikely to add much to their historical legacies at this point. The discrepancies generally came with players like Curry, whose partial careers are tougher to compare to complete ones.
On the other hand, even some midcareer stars, like Kevin Durant (top 25, 24th in championships added) and Chris Paul (29th, 28th in championships added), landed about where they belong statistically.
The good news is that the Curry problem is bound to resolve itself. Given time and health, he'll continue padding his career stats and honors to belong among the game's greats.
Just how high could Curry get? On average, the retired top-50 players in #NBArank who entered the league after 1979-80 contributed more than 70 percent of their career value in terms of championships added after their age-27 season.
Applying that same ratio to Curry's total through 2014-15 suggests he can reasonably expect to finish around 2.1 championships added if his career is typical. Such a total would put Curry 15th all time, right between Julius Erving and Dirk Nowitzki.