Offensively I view Curry as the NBA's most impactful due to the gravity and sheer range he has on his shot where he can pull up from anywhere at any time. It opens up the court like no one else.
145ppg over a season isn't realistic.
Curry's Warriors with KD and Klay averaged 113.5. Doesn't matter who you add to that team. They're not making the jump to 145ppg. That's why I said 120 if you add those lethal offensive pieces.
The key to my above lineup is LeBron at point guard. He has been a liability for a new seasons now defensively but put him at point, take the offensive load off of him as would happen with all those guys having scoring capabilities and Steph or any point guard would have a bad day with LeBron arguably able to defend the position better than anyone in the NBA. Guys aren't driving past him, seeing or shooting over him easily. And anyone who gets switched onto Steph with the length of that whole squad also would cause him or any other point guard in the NBA serious trouble. And on the other end. Steph would have to be switched off of LeBron entirely, with no capacity to defend him. It would be a bad situation made worse if both Curry and Harden were on that same team with matchups galore offensively that can be exploited.
If I added an 8th player to my above squad, I'd next go with Klay over Curry or Harden, continuing to get guys who can play both ways.
If you have 5 lethal scorers. You have to remember. There is only one basketball. So the returns are somewhat diminished, whereas on defence, any weak links and you're getting killed the other way.
I think you took my post too seriously about 145. My point was that Steph adds so much offensively that the fact he is an average defender (he's not a bad defender) doesn't matter. To me adding Butler (who is only a decent offensive player) because he's pretty good at defense is silly.
Also, how much Warriors basketball do you watch? Steph very rarely gets exploited. It got to a point that the Rockets stopped doing it in their series because it flat out wasn't working.
And you are talking about putting a bunch of talent on the court at one time. That's not what your initial post said. You just rated Butler better than Curry. So, the question I have is... If you were Warrior management you would make the trade of Curry for Butler? And if you were Rockets management you would make the trade of Harden for Butler?