Welcome back, Steph. The playoffs missed you.

While the NBA’s first unanimous MVP recovered from a sprained MCL, we watched the Cavs throttle the Hawks in four games and a Heat-Raptors death march featuring injured centers, inefficient guards and dubious late-game coaching. The Steph-less Warriors played some entertaining games with Portland, but it was palpable that something was lacking. Meanwhile, Thunder-Spurs is the one second round series that has been good for consistent thrills, but unfortunately they can’t play that series every night. This all came after an underwhelming round one, where even the Game 7’s were lackluster.

But the Baby-Faced Assassin is back, and he wasted no time reminding us why we fell in love with him to begin with. His 4th quarter and overtime performance in Game 4 was legendary.

Every historically great player is able to quiet a hostile crowd in the playoffs. Steph didn’t just quiet the Portland faithful – he ripped their hearts out, poked them in the eyes and slapped their mamas. The man turned billionaire Paul Allen into a damn meme:

As an encore, Curry finished off the Blazers in Game 5 singlehandedly down the stretch. His ability to hit step-back threes over bigger defenders is beyond description at this point. It used to be absurd that he would even take these shots – now you just expect them all to go in. He doesn’t even have his feet squared up to the basket on this backbreaking, series-winning dagger on Al-Farouq Aminu:

Aminu, who had a great shooting series in his own right, learned the perils of tugging on Superman’s cape. If you recall, Aminu stared down a street-clothes-dressed Curry in Game 3 after draining a corner three.

Yea, not a great move. Curry of course got the last laugh. Don’t spit into the wind…and don’t mess around with Slim.

Curry’s second-straight MVP campaign has been so transcendent, I’m not sure NBA fans could’ve gotten over it if they were cheated out of watching him do his thing in the playoffs. From Game 1 to Game 82, this Curry season has felt historic. 73 wins. 402 threes. A top-10 all-time PER. 50-45-90 shooting percentages. His value is unique because he can dominate a game while still operating within the confines of the Warriors’ offense. The ball doesn’t stick in his hands. To wit, per SportVu stats on NBAsavant.com, Curry ranked 69th in average dribbles per touch (3.613) and 73rd in average touch time (3.816 seconds). Remember Curry led the league in scoring yet played under 35 minutes per game. Just how the hell does he pull that off without playing hero ball exclusively? It just doesn’t compute.

So let’s turn our attention to the historical context of this special MVP season.

I looked at 29 other famous MVP campaigns in an effort to compare where Curry ranks by the numbers. The criteria I chose to consider: PER, counting stats titles, Win Shares, Value Over Replacement Player, Box Plus/Minus and Team Wins. I’m simply adding them up without weighing any value higher than another, because I barely passed College Algebra. I did give a player 5 points for each counting stats title they won during their MVP season. The sum total is what I call the MVP Quotient. *Note: steals, blocks, VORP, BPM are not available for Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Wilt Chamberlain. I estimated 11 BPM and 10 VORP for each.

The results:

As you can see, Curry grades out at the very top of the list. Above 1971-72 Kareem, 1995-96 Jordan, 1985-86 Bird, 2008-09 & 2012-13 LeBron. I’m always highly cognizant of the perils of recency bias, which is what led me to this exercise in the first place. But the numbers back up Curry’s case for the greatest offensive season of all time and, at the very least, a top-5 all-time MVP season. A season for the ages. My grandkids will hear plenty of stories about 2015-16 Steph.

Side note or two: How awesome was LeBron’s 2008-09 season? The 4th-best ever PER and it ranks 5th on this list even though he didn’t get any 5-point boosts for a counting stats title. It’s also cool to see how LBJ and Jordan dominate with seven of the top 12 MVP seasons on this list.

Playoff Power Rankings

1. Cleveland Cavaliers (Beat Hawks 4-0) – Just rolling through the East, licking their chops at the Heat-Raptors slap fight.
2. Oklahoma City Thunder (Lead Spurs 3-2) – Amazingly have won 3 of  after getting trounced in Game 1. They need to close it out in Game 6, as a third straight victory in San Antonio is highly unlikely.
3. Golden State Warriors (Beat Blazers 4-1) – Portland was a handful, even for five games, but now they get some rest. We’ll see how Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green heal up from minor injuries. The West Finals will be a bloodbath.
4. San Antonio Spurs (Trail Thunder 3-2) – Reeling and on the ropes. But you can never count out the Spurs until the last buzzer sounds on their elimination. Wouldn’t be surprised if they win Games 6 and 7, but their offense needs an injection of life to do so.
5. Toronto Raptors (Lead Heat 3-2) – They should beat the Heat without Hassan Whiteside. Their prize is the Cleveland slaughter.
6. Miami Heat (Trail Raptors 3-2) – Terrible luck with Chris Bosh and now Whiteside and Luol Deng banged up. We’ll see if vintage Dwyane Wade returns to help force a Game 7.
7. Portland Trail Blazers (Lost to Warriors 4-1)
8. Atlanta Hawks (Lost to Cavs 4-0)
9. Charlotte Hornets
10. Indiana Pacers
11. Boston Celtics
12. Los Angeles Clippers
13. Dallas Mavericks
14. Detroit Pistons
15. Houston Rockets
16. Memphis Grizzlies