Shaq: Stephen Curry Is Better Than Me, Perhaps Better Than Anyone

Stephen Curry was incredible last night as the Golden State Warriors outlasted the Boston Celtics in overtime. A gambling site even informs us that he hit the "night night celly" frozen emoji after a clutch-three pointer swung the balance. Eyeball emoji, eyeball emoji, amirite?

Following the game Shaquille O'Neal had thoughts from his perch nearest the Christmas tree on Inside the NBA.

"I'm wondering, is it time to start putting him as the best player of all time?" O'Neal said. Kenny Smith, noticeably surprised, asked if Shaq would put the sweet shooter ahead of himself. And Shaq would, without hesitation.

"I played 20 years, I watched 20 years before that, I've never seen a guy like him." O'Neal said.

Then the discussion sort of lost a lot of steam because Shaq had to say he wasn't putting Curry anywhere on any list. "For all the chitter-chatter, is it time to just put him in the conversation?"

Now to be clear this is the best studio show on television and O'Neal is one of the most interesting people out there, but this serves as a nice little microcosm for one of the worst impulses in sports debate. Which is a straying into a conversation about The Conversation — an exercise in filling time that has all the real-world oomph of those chess certificates that jerk printed up in Searching for Bobby Fisher. Especially since Shaq said something super intriguing and definitive seconds before: that given the choice of himself and Curry, he'd choose Curry. That is tangible. You can see the shape of it. It doesn't require falling back on phrases like chitter-chatter and parsing the 8th- and 12th-best players to ever play while knowing full well it's fruitless.

Pull on that string. Specificity is awesome because it allows every viewer to be on the same page and actually, you know, understand the topic being debated or discussed. Not trying to be condescending to the wonderfully rich sports discourse industrial complex but more people should try it more often.