Is it time to hand Steph Curry the 'best player in the league' mantra?

Coming off his first Finals MVP award and his fourth title since 2015, Warriors All-NBA point guard Stephen Curry clearly remains one of the league’s elite players, and obviously its single-best shooter. Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area makes the case that it’s time to officially anoint him as the elite of the elites — the NBA’s current best player.

Johnson notes that Curry vanquished a series of All-NBA foes in his postseason run through the West, besting Nikola Jokic, Ja Morant, and Luka Doncic in plus-minus by an absurd margin in each case. In six Finals games, Curry posted averages of 31.2 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 5.0 APG and 2.0 SPG. He connected on 48.2% of his field goals and 43.7% of his long-range looks.

Johnson also discusses Curry’s astronomical impact in lifting the Warriors while playing alongside them, improving Golden State’s offense rating by 27.2 when he took the floor during the team’s Finals series against the Celtics, one of the league’s best defenses.

Here’s more from California’s four NBA teams:

• Warriors rookie Patrick Baldwin Jr. discussed the various contemporary players whose diverse approach to the game he hopes to replicate during a Dubs Talk podcast interview with Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area. “I like to watch [Kevin Durant], I like to watch Khris Middleton, I like to watch [Jayson Tatum],” Baldwin told Johnson. “I’m watching Otto Porter Jr., Michael Porter Jr. — guys that I think have roles that I can fill some day… It’s just important to be multifaceted and learn from everybody.”
• With Thunder lottery pick Chet Holmgren now out for the 2022/23 season, Kings rookie forward Keegan Murray has seen his chances of netting Rookie of the Year hardware improve significantly, writes Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee (subscriber link). Sacramento selected the 2022 consensus All-American out of Iowa with the fourth pick in this year’s draft.
• The Clippers are hoping their expensive new Inglewood arena, Intuit Dome, will help improve their standing in the Los Angeles NBA pecking order with regards to the Lakers, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.