After Stephen Curry buried a 32-foot heat-sinking missile of a three-pointer to give the Golden State Warriors a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night, a meme of the reigning NBA MVP shooting from outer space to Earth hit the Internet as a reference to his unreal shooting range.
The graphic was fitting, considering how extraterrestrial Curry has been this season, setting off fireworks with his shooting night in and night out, while rewriting many records in the process. With the Warriors 53-5 and in striking distance of overtaking the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (72-10) for the best regular season record in NBA history, we attempt to put Curry's mind-numbing season in perspective by the numbers.
Last week, Curry snatched the NBA record for most consecutive regular season games with at least one made three-point shot, a streak he has pushed to 129 (and counting).
On Saturday night, Curry's 12 three-pointers tied him for the NBA single-game record for most threes.
The same night saw him set the all-time record for three-pointers in a single season, with 288, breaking the record he set last year with 286. Scary, considering he has 24 games left in the season.
That means if Curry sinks the 5 three-pointers he's averaging per game this year, he'll finish the season with 408 threes, putting his own record way out of reach.
Curry has a great chance to reach that number, considering he launches 11 three-pointers per game.
According to the Washington Post, Curry's 46 points Saturday night marked the 11th time this season that he lit up the scoring board for at least 40 points in less than 40 minutes on the court, while shooting upwards of 48 percent from the floor. That broke Michael Jordan's record from the 1983-84 season. Greatness.
He's also shooting three-pointers at career-high 46.8 percent clip this season.
What's crazier is he's sinking deep three-pointers — from 28 feet and half-court — at an absurd 67.3 percent.
To put that in perspective, that's nearly 20 percent more than Kawhi Leonard's 2015-16 season-leading 48.8 percent clip beyond the arc and nearly as much as DeAndre Jordan's season-best field-goal percentage of 69 percent. How ridiculous is that?
The reigning MVP and Splash Brother has been especially scorching the net lately, putting up 36.7 points per game in his last 10 games.
That has pushed his average to a league-leading 30.7 points per game this season.
Remarkably, he has still managed to maintain his spot as the game's top scorer this year, despite having sat out 14 fourth quarters this season.
His 33.9 minutes per game is the least amount of time on the court among the Top 10 scorers in the league, too.
Along the way, he also sports a league-best Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 32.95.
