Golden State Warriors: Is Stephen Curry sneakily peaking?

The Golden State Warriors are off to a relatively-modest 5-3 start, while their superstar point guard Stephen Curry has relatively struggled from 3-point range. That makes his historic efficiency all the more fascinating.

During his unanimous MVP season, the only one in league history, Stephen Curry reached a transcendent statistical plane. The Golden State Warriors point guard hit over 400 3-pointers with over 5.0 per game, averaged over 30 points and joined the 50-40-90 club. He also had a true shooting percentage of 66.9.

At the end of October, Curry’s 2017-18 true shooting percentage is 68.8.

It is not the only career mark Curry is on pace to shatter. He’s also shooting an absurd 66 percent from 2-point range and 95.1 percent from the foul line on a fantastic 7.6 attempts per game. The free throw percentage is unsustainable (it was at 100 percent two days ago), while the 2-point percentage may or may not be. Even if he regresses, that he is nearly 10 percentage points better than his previous career high (56.6 percent during his unanimous MVP season) says more is at play here than a small sample size.

Curry is forever improving as a finisher and ball-handler. He is also constantly getting stronger. He is getting into the lane more than ever, and he is turning more of his misses into free throws by seeking out contact. As Kevin Durant begins to fully embrace the Warriors’ offense (i.e. begins to realize how easy it is to get clean looks just by cutting and keeping the ball moving), Curry is freer than ever to attack.

Back to sample size. Whether or not Curry’s 2-point percentage is unsustainable, it is not as aberrational as his 38.6 3-point percentage. Curry is not taking worse shots, and even if he were, that has never affected him before (he took 508 off-the-dribble 3s in 2015-16, and made 42.9 percent of them).

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Some might argue that Curry’s regression from deep is the continuation of a two-year trend, since he shot a career-low 41.1 percent last year. But Curry shot 39.7 percent during the first half of the season, an outlier for several reasons. He had spent the summer rehabbing from a sprained MCL that he returned early from and played heavy minutes on the previous postseason. He also was struggling to find his way as an off-ball weapon next to Durant, a strategy Steve Kerr essentially nixed once he realized it allowed teams to grab and hold Curry far more freely.

Curry returned to form after the midway point, shooting 42.5 percent. He followed that up with his second-best 3-point shooting postseason (41.9 percent, 4.2 makes per game).

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume Curry has regressed significantly from deep. After shooting 44.4 percent through seven seasons, we’ll say he is only a 41-percent shooter now. What would a regression to that new, conservative mean due to his already-unprecedented efficiency?

Let’s say Curry drops to 60 percent on 2s and 90 percent on free throws while rising up to 41 percent on 3s from here on out (again, all conservative estimates). At his current shot distribution, that would give him a true-shooting percentage of 67.7 the rest of the way — still comfortably surpassing his career high.

Curry is already the greatest offensive force of his era, if not all-time. He forces defenses to abandon their principles in a way that only Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain have done before, only he makes them do so 30 feet farther from the basket. Beyond that, he is an excellent floor general, an expert passer, a quality defender and has added value for the mere fact that he is a point guard. No one needs to get him the ball.

He is helming, through eight games, the most dominant offense the league has ever seen (the Warriors’ offensive rating of 118.6 would obliterate the old record of 115.6, set by the 1986-87 Lakers). And while his cold outside shooting is disguising it, he might be better than ever.

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If his jumper catches up to the rest of his game, the basketball world will have to pivot as it realizes that this former unanimous MVP is again having a career year.