Warriors' Stephen Curry earning praise, Warriors coach Steve Kerr is not prone to speak in superlatives, but made an exception for Stephen Curry earlier in the week.
After Curry needed only three quarters to rack up 30 points and 15 assists in a rout of the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, Kerr said his point guard was currently the best in the NBA at the position. The drumbeat continued Wednesday when ESPN broadcaster Jeff Van Gundy said Curry was the best point guard "without question."
"I try not to get too much into rankings and who's best and all that," Kerr said Thursday. "I just know that Steph's my point guard, and he's played out of his mind the last three or four games, and I haven't seen anybody play better. So if I say that, it's coming from the heart.
"I don't say much, but the way he's playing, he's earned that praise."
Curry, whose team returns to action Friday against Utah, leads all point guards averaging 24.8 points per game and is fifth averaging 7.7 assists. He said during the offseason that becoming the top point guard was a goal of his.
"Obviously those debates are pretty spirited, but also everyone has their own criteria for what they do," Curry said.
"It's nice to be in those conversations, but I'm sure eventually it's just how you talk about the end of your career and what you did and your full body of work and go from there."
Curry did mention that in an offseason poll of the league's general managers by NBA.com that 7.4 percent of the executives voted him the best shooting guard, tying him with Kobe Bryant for third at a position he doesn't play much of.
Curry received votes for being the NBA's best point guard, but the top three were the Los Angeles Clippers' Chris Paul, Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook and San Antonio's Tony Parker.
"That's the only thing that I definitely like to hear is not being the third-best ranked shooting guards to GMs across the NBA," Curry said. "That's funny. Gotta get my position right."
Harrison Barnes leads the Warriors in 3-point shooting at 48.1 percent, with fellow starting forward Draymond Green third at 41.9 percent.
"Most people have been kind of down on (Barnes) and kind of unfairly," said Curry, who is shooting 39.7 percent from beyond the arc.
Green entered the season with questions about whether he could continue his shooting improvement, especially after the Warriors did not trade for Kevin Love. But Kerr said Green is fulfilling the stretch forward role "100 percent."
"Now it feels like it's going to go in all the time, so the floor is now spread," Kerr said.
"He puts it on the floor with all that floor spacing, there's no defense for that. You can't scheme for that."
Curry said after noticing Green was 3 for 8 from long distance in a win last week against Brooklyn that they laughed about Green becoming a "Splash Triplet."
"Every time they rise up and take a shot, I've got 100 percent confidence it's going in, and that's because I've obviously been seeing how everybody's been shooting," Curry said.
"You understand when we move the ball and get good shots for everybody on the team, that should elevate everybody's talent and everybody's consistency when it comes to knocking down shots."
