The Warriors needed just 25 minutes from their starting point guard to defeat the Nuggets by 43 points, a game that Steph Curry and Golden State were winning by 27 at halftime. Golden State, now 33-6, is the NBA’s premier team, atop the far mightier of the two conferences by 3.5 games despite the terrific 31-win campaign taking place in Portland. Denver is no Portland, but the Nuggets are far better than their 18 wins imply. (If Denver played in the Eastern Conference… Well, we’ve all heard that line before.)
Back to Curry. The leading vote getter amongst Western Conference All-Star hopefuls scored 20 points in his 25 minutes against Denver on a ho-hum shooting performance for his bewildering standards — 7-of-13 from the field overall, 2-of-5 on threes. Golden State won the game in large part because of its collection of elite shooters; the team outshot Denver from the field by 20 percentage points, and splashed six more 3s on roughly the same number of attempts. For good measure, the Warriors even had a better night from the charity stripe, making 21 of 27 free throw attempts, roughly 78 percent compared to the Nuggets’ 63 percent.
Oh, I’m sorry. Back to Curry. The NBA’s greatest volume shooter needed no more than 25 minutes to distribute eight assists, exactly his per game average in his sixth season. The Warriors are the NBA’s second best passing team by the numbers, as only Atlanta assists on more of its buckets; then again, Golden State scores more often than Atlanta does, with its 110.1 offensive rating besting the East’s top team by 3.3 points per 100 possessions. And both teams protect the basketball at a top five rate.
I keep doing that. Sorry, sorry, it won’t happen again.
Do you see what I’m doing? Is it possible that we are taking Curry for granted — not just in this, his finest season yet, but all together? There is — and I’m not just saying this to be hyperbolic — NO HISTORICAL PRECEDENT for what we are watching him do on the court. The man is attempting 16.4 shots per game, including 7.6 attempts from deep, and making 49.9 percent of them. This includes three 3s a night, when the entire universe understands the three-point shot is to Curry what the camera was to Conrad Hall. The only shooter in Curry’s stratosphere when considering number of attempts and degree of difficulty is Kyle Korver, who may as well be wearing Johnny Storm’s Fantastic Four uniform.
I'm pretty sure if you spilled oil anywhere near Kyle Korver or Steph Curry these days you would incinerate anything within miles and miles.
— Joe Manganiello (@thatjoemags) January 19, 2015
But Korver isn’t given the same to-do list as Curry, who is asked to play and defend the point guard position — an unforgiving and altogether more taxing ordeal. Steph Curry is a laboratory experiment where Ray Allen is given Kyrie Irving’s ball-handling and the endearing charm of Bradley Cooper. He’s quickly becoming the game’s biggest ticket, it’s strongest combination of likeability and ability; the “Steph Curry Heatcheck” alert system is installed in the friendships of even the most casual basketball fans.
Defense, once considered a gaping hole in his resume, is now another tool in his belt, as Curry has transformed from a skinny younger brother that Mark Jackson would hide on opponent’s fifth options to a 6’3″ pesticide that pokes and pries at the ball while his crew of lengthy chameleon defenders holds opponents to league-low offensive efficiency. Curry is averaging more than two steals per game, part of the 16 turnovers Golden State forces each night, and a large reason why the Warriors lead the NBA in fast break points (20.5).
I’m not sure there is a player who can do what Steph Curry does night after night for the Warriors. This is a franchise that, up until very recently, was going nowhere. Ever since Curry fell to Golden State in the 2009 NBA Draft, good things have just sort of happened to them. This is the deepest team in the NBA, but does their depth and versatility matter nearly as much without the game’s best point guard and most creative, multipurpose assassin running the show and pumping up the blue-and-gold crowd? Are they an NBA Finals contender without Curry?
So long as Golden State is leaps and bounds better than every other team in the sport, I’m not sure there is a more valuable player in basketball than Curry.
The case for James Harden as MVP is as strong as an ox. That we even begin the MVP discourse this early speaks loudly to our undying passion as fans for the history of the all-time great players. Complex Magazine recently ranked its version of the Best Rappers Alive each year since 1979, a list that my friends and I devoured and debated for hours. It is not a perfect list — those who are Team Nicki, please, show yourself! — but it’s also not supposed to be: the extreme subjectivity of the entire conversation is an immovable obstacle in the way of “getting it right.” But the reason why we argue so loudly for our favorite musicians, athletes, and films is because we are invested and not because we are right.
A great basketball player will win MVP at the end of this season, and that winner will (a) not be a consensus selection across all of basketball and (b) is not guaranteed a championship, or even an NBA Finals appearance when everything is all said and done. But my understanding is the MVP award goes to the most irreplaceable player in the league throughout the regular season. There is no question — shot after shot, dish after dish, highlight after highlight — that player is Curry.
Now please, tell me why I’m wrong.
