For those who aren’t familiar, british soccer commentator Andy Gray said this of Messi back in 2010/11, questioning whether Messi could dominate in tough conditions against a physical premier league club. It’s now a popular joke within the soccer and internet community.
For the NBA, is it “Can he do it after a night out in Miami?” “Can he do it on the second night of a back to back in Denver?” “Can he do it after the Lakers sent missed foul call video evidence to the league?” Something else?
This comes up more when ranking all time NBA greats — could he do it back when the game was more physical and soft players got trounced? People even ask this about LeBron James, but more often they ask it about Steph Curry.