NBA Power Rankings: Ranking All 30 Starting Point Guards

2.  Stephen Curry — Golden State Warriors

Passer Rating: 153.13 (4th)

Per-36 minutes:  26.2 points, 8.5 assists, 4.7 rebounds, 2.2 steals, 3.4 turnovers.  48.7% field goals, 44.3% 3-pointers, 91.4% free throws

True Shooting Percentage:  63.8% (1st)

Player Efficiency Rating:  28.06 (2nd)

Real Plus-Minus:  9.34 (1st)

Wins Above Replacement:  20.07 (1st)

This league MVP was once believed to be injury-riddled. With bad ankles and a skinny body, Stephen Curry wasn’t destined for a Hall-of-Fame career. He was never going to have the same impact as the point guards that could set up teammates better, jump higher, dunk harder, or play better defense.

When the 2009 Draft rolled around, six general managers thought they had better NBA prospects. Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, and Jonny Flynn were all selected higher than Curry.

To this day, none of those six have won an NBA title, captured a league MVP, or snapped the amount of records as the No. 7 overall pick.

Much similar to Kevin Durant’s 2013-14 glory, Stephen Curry’s 2014-15 season will go down as one of the 10-15 greatest individual seasons in history. Probably higher than 10th, if we’re valuing today’s loaded Western Conference compared to the historical balance.

Full disclosure:  A substantial part of my mind believes Curry has a stronger case for No. 1 than the next name, based off his overwhelming 2014-15 season alone. We should really grasp what this man is doing. Even though this means very little about his skill level, Curry has already surpassed LeBron James as the league’s most popular player (according to the 2015 All-Star votes). As lovers of this game, do we even understand what this means? Have we thought about how hard that is?

LeBron is the NBA’s archetypal poster child that everyone looks up to, and that title is being challenged by someone five inches shorter and 70 pounds lighter.

They say records are always meant to be broken, and perhaps Curry is the one who coined that statement. Reggie Miller’s record of 58 3-pointers during a single playoff run didn’t just get snapped. It got busted open, laughed at, spit on, and launched out of the record book.

In the 21 games he led Golden State through the playoffs, Curry saw his 3-pointers splash 98 times. It may be the only instance I can think of where a record was almost doubled when it was broken. That’s 40 more outside bombs than Miller hit in 1999-2000, and Miller only shot 39.5% from beyond the arc. Curry was well above him, at 42.2% on a lot more attempts.

There were so many perplexing moments of Curry’s run to a championship, but there’s one that nobody really discusses.

We all remember how Matthew Dellavedova gained the reputation of being the “Curry-stopper.” That lasted about two games, but something definitely sticks out about it. In Games 2 and 6 of the Finals, Curry only shot 2-of-15 and 3-of-11 from long-range, respectively. In those two games alone, he was 5-of-26 (19.2%).

So, how preposterous is it that Curry finished the Finals with a 3-point efficiency of 38.5%?  That means, in the other four games, he shot 20-of-39 from 3-point range. He made up for the vile performances by laying the smackdown on Cleveland in the rest. There’s 400 players out there in the NBA that would give ANYTHING to shoot 38.5% from deep on the biggest stage of their lives. But for Curry, it was a mediocre Finals. Let that offer some perspective into what type of machine we’re dealing with.

Jump-shooting teams weren’t supposed to claim a championship, but former Warriors Assistant Coach Alvin Gentry is always the first to tell you they broke the barrier. Curry’s entire playoff run included 11 3-point attempts per game, and points off 3-pointers took up 49.4% of his total points.

If you’re still not strapped on board and ready to crown Curry as the NBA’s greatest shooter of all-time (at age 27), then consider this:  He just became the only player in NBA history to shoot over 44% from beyond the arc, while taking at least 8 bombs per game. Seriously, Ray Allen never did it. Reggie Miller couldn’t do it.

Curry’s legendary status goes well beyond his shooting, however. It’s based on much more than that.

He doesn’t get enough credit as a distributor, despite finishing 4th overall in Passer Rating and having an Assist Percentage over 30% for four of his six NBA seasons.

In reality, Curry is the focal point of everything Golden State runs, and his eye for pinpointing shooters is always a mystery. There are only a handful of point guards that can sling the ball across the court like Curry, finding open guys without causing too many turnovers:

Releasing a pass way too early in these situations could negatively affect their scoring chances. Without the extra help committing to Curry, Green may not have the clearest look or path to the rim. Curry came into the league as a pure shooter that needed to further his point guard knowledge, and he’s been able to do that under Mark Jackson and Steve Kerr.

All through this summer, I’ve been sick to my stomach. It’s four months past the 2015 Finals, and all we keep hearing is how James Harden should’ve won league MVP honors. With strong consideration to Steve Nash “stealing” Kobe Bryant’s MVP in the early 2000’s and Derrick Rose winning over LeBron in 2011 … Curry is easily the most disrespected MVP I’ve ever seen.

He was the engineer of a team that won 67 games in the Western Conference — after most picked them to win below 53 — and he only missed one game due to injury for the whole year. If we’re going to give Nash the award for being “the best player on the best team” for one of those years, Curry deserved it even more.

Don’t forget the one that really grinds my gears:  “The Warriors were lucky to be in the Finals, and even luckier to beat the injury-plagued Cavaliers!”

Sure, a team that finished their whole run with a 83-20 record deserves to be labeled as “lucky.” Sure, a group of guys that were 58-0 after leading by 15+ points is one blessed with nothing but “good luck.”

As Curry progresses through his NBA career, the two areas of emphasis are to improve as a defender against bigger point guards, and limit his turnovers.

With defensive specialist Ron Adams on board as the Warriors’ assistant coach, only positive signs will be in sight for Curry’s future.

Next: Best Point God Since Magic