E-mailer Dan dropped this one into my inbox: "Here's an article idea for you: (Jonny) Flynn arguably had the better rookie season than (Steph) Curry. 23.4 pts/100 possessions for Flynn, 23.1 pts/100 possessions for Curry with Flynn shooting 5.8 free throws/100 possessions vs. Curry's 2.9.
I'm at a point in life where I like things that challenge conventional wisdom — like this trivia question: Who has more career points — Brandon Roy or Randy Foye? (It's Foye, by more than 1,000).
So I dutifully headed to Basketball Reference to fact check the first part of the e-mail. And indeed, Flynn did beat Curry in those two categories. However, they were pretty neatly cherry-picked from a litany of stats that showed Curry was the better player — he was more efficient, played better defense, shot the three better, rebounded better and had more assists.
So no, Curry was still the better rookie.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. michael.rand@startribune.com.
