If you’re looking for any microcosm of just how much better Golden State is than the rest of the NBA, this is it.

And it’s perfect because it encapsulates the exemplary execution of its core philosophy—passing up good shots for great shots via ball movement—and highlights the supreme fluidity of this historically great offense. No other team has eclipsed the 70-percent mark since the 2003-04 New Jersey Nets, per NBA.com. Coincidentally, that team was also fresh off two straight NBA Finals appearances.

No, the Warriors will not match nor beat their record-setting 73-win mark from last year. But make no mistake: This team is better than the 2015-16 iteration. And its improved assist percentage (up 3.1 percent) is just one of many stats that support that claim.

Overall, though, I have to give the nod to the Dubs’ defensive efficiency—points allowed per 100 possessions. Right now, they’re second in the NBA at 101.4, sandwiched right between the San Antonio Spurs (101.2) and Utah Jazz (101.9).

Coming into the season, it seemed like the Dubs were losing a lot on defense with Andrew Bogut, Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli all departed. Instead, Durant (top 10 in blocks per game) and Stephen Curry (leader in loose balls recovered) have turned in their best defensive seasons to date, while Draymond Green has further strengthened his case for his first Defensive Player of the Year award.

Whatever they lack in rim protection has been more than made up for by their length, energy and defensive help.

Golden State has gotten solid positional defense from Zaza Pachulia, while Draymond Green and Kevin Durant have ably anchored their undersized units. As a result, the Warriors lead the NBA in block, steals and deflections while also ranking second in loose balls recovered per game.

We’ll always think of offense first with this team, but the sustained defensive dominance is the bigger story.

They’re shooting 56.3 percent from two, and not many folks are making a huge deal about it. Putting this into perspective, only four other teams in NBA history have managed to shoot over 54 percent from two during a season—two Showtime Laker units, the 2013-14 Miami Heat and the current Houston Rockets. The Warriors’ efficiency from inside the arc would be No. 1 all-time if it sticks.

It’s a bit ironic, wouldn’t you say? The Splash Trio (or whatever we’re calling them now) makes for the greatest three-point shooting team assembled…yet Kevin Durant is making everyone pay with his rim-attacking nature.

You don’t get this type of success from the field without constant cuts, motion and screening from every player—including your sharpshooting point guard. Watch Stephen Curry set off-ball screens for an entire game, and take your eyes off the ball. Try it. You’ll see why he’s important for more than just shooting.

In the rare moments I escaped the joyful haze of Curry’s unparalleled performance in 2015-16, I was sure to remind myself that his display was not repeatable. History and common sense told me there was nowhere for him to go this year but down. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen. Just last month, he was only named an honorable mention in Bleacher Report’s 10 Best Shooters rankings of the current season. And that was fair.

But in the nine games since then, he has averaged 28 points per contest, registered a 52/49/90 shooting line and put up games of 11, nine, eight and six three-point makes. The man is fine. To be fair, his pull-up three-point percentage is still down 6.5 percent from last year (42.8 to 36.3), per NBA.com. But in this current nine-game span, it’s been up at 48.7 percent, a number that easily leads the league among players shooting at least three triples per game, and a clip that Curry himself has never even come close to over a full season since NBA.com began tracking that stat in 2013-14.

Sure, he hasn’t looked quite as flawless launching the ball this year as he did last season. But he’s still rocketing up the makes chart at an unprecedented rate. When I even try to play devil’s advocate with this question, there’s no one I can realistically say is above him in the all-time ranks. A few do match his percentage from deep, but no one can even sniff Curry’s range, creativity and quick release.

Curry is clearly the best shooter of all time. And really, it’s not even close.

Of course, the question is whether or not Steph is the greatest shooter of all time overall.

In my opinion, that debate comes down to the Warriors star and two other multi-time MVPs—Steve Nash and Larry Bird. In league history, Curry and Steve Nash are the lone members of 45-50-90 club, while Nash and Bird have hit 40-50-90 four times and three times, respectively, if we’re rounding up.

Though Curry might not hit those thresholds every year, I’m confident he’ll be within striking range every season for the next decade or so, ultimately cementing his place ahead of both by rivaling the accuracy of Nash with the volume of Bird. If we’re going off just aesthetics, though, it’s already a wrap.

And considering he currently ranks second all time in three-point percentage, he’s not so bad from an efficiency standpoint either. It will take an act of God to prevent him from finishing as the most prolific long-distance shooter in league history, and catching Steve Kerr’s all-time efficiency mark (45.4 percent) isn’t at all out of the question.

I guess you could dig around and find superior mid-range shooters, or guys who convert those little flips and floaters more frequently. Though, to be fair, Curry’s career conversion rates from inside three feet and from the “long two” range are 64.4 and 45.9 percent, respectively.

When you factor in his ability to create so many of his own shots, along with his deadeye accuracy on the catch, I really don’t think there’s a viable case for anyone else.

From an aesthetic and situational point of view, I could understand why some would point towards Allen, Steve Nash, Mark Price or Klay Thompson. Allen had defenses petrified through his Milwaukee Bucks and Seattle SuperSonics days as the go-to guy—like Curry has experienced the last few years—and then transformed into one of the two deadliest spot-up shooters I’ve ever seen. The other being Thompson, Curry’s teammate.

Due to the level of difficulty Curry has to endure with his pull-up style of shooting, along with the stamina you have to possess in order to hit those shots in crunch-time, he’s undeniably the greatest shooter ever.

But the last two weeks have been far kinder to Cleveland. They’ve won seven of nine with a 9.2 net rating, riding incredible offense and mostly crappy defense. And they’ve done so while cutting LeBron James’ court time by two minutes per game (shoutout Tyronn Lue) compared to the previous nine contests, in which he had a span of three straight 44-plus minute games (all losses).

And this is happening without J.R. Smith, who is still nursing an injury. Props to Kyle Korver for finally getting comfortable in Cleveland.

That’s the long way of saying things actually aren’t so bad for the Cavs, who have mostly suffered murmurs of “what the hell is wrong in Cleveland” since 2017 rolled around. And amid those murmurs, they never even lost their footing as the East’s top seed, thanks to struggles in Toronto.

While the Warriors will have to get through Cleveland to pick up another Larry O’Brien Trophy, San Antonio gets the honorable mention in this conversation. The Spurs kicked all the gold out of Golden State on opening night and also beat Cleveland in their only meeting so far this year. March will give us a clearer answer to this question, as the Warriors and Spurs meet twice in a 19-day period.

Should the Spurs mince more Golden meat, the NBA world at large will have to stop taking a third consecutive Warriors Finals appearance for granted.

But come playoff time, the Cavs still boast the single greatest matchup problem for the Warriors in LeBron. Until King James shows clear signs that he is exiting his prime, his ability to take over a game combined with a strong supporting cast—which he still has in Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and friends—is still a scarier prospect than Leonard and the Spurs’ twin towers of Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge.

LeBron James is still a singular force, and all of the same issues that arose in the 2016 Finals will still be there this time around—assuming Cleveland’s role players get healthy.

There’s always the “LeBron factor,” which simply states that a top-five all-time player could turn into Terminator and terrorize everything in sight. But it not only took Terminator LeBron to erase a 3-1 Finals lead last year…it also took a miraculous Game 5 from Kyrie Irving and his historic Game 7 shot over Curry. Oh, and that was with Harrison Barnes missing shot after shot when the Warriors found him open. He’s been replaced by the best offensive talent in the world, and Cleveland would have to hope for Golden State’s injury luck to turn bad.

It’s the Spurs who stand as the top threat right now. They are only marginally lower than Cleveland in offensive rating (110.0), but currently 18 ranks higher in defensive rating (101.2).  When the Cavaliers won the title last year, they were the 10th-ranked defense. Now, they’re 10 spots worse. I just don’t see how that’s stopping a juggernaut.

The offense has really caught fire of late, putting up nearly 120 points per 100 possessions over the last nine games. That’s six points better than during the Warriors’ 24-0 start last season, with a higher assist percentage, lower turnover percentage and higher true shooting percentage.

The fear to begin the season was that the Dubs’ had depleted their supporting cast to land Durant. But that hasn’t been the case at all. Last year, when Curry sat, the Warriors struggled to a minus-3.7 net rating. This year, when he’s off the court, the Warriors still beat opponents by 2.9 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. That’s largely because they have the luxury of leaving one MVP on the floor when the other sits. But that 6.6-point swing is also a testament to the contributions of newcomers like David West, JaVale McGee, Zaza Pachulia and Patrick McCaw.

The team is not, however, more entertaining. Curry’s usage is down 3.7 percent, per Basketball-Reference.com, because he’s sharing alpha duties with Durant. That means 3.7 percent less ridiculous wizardry, 3.7 percent less improvisation and an eye-test-confirmed 3.7 percent less excitement. But my god, does this team produce some beautiful basketball.

With the addition of Durant, the narrative has shifted from: “How do the Warriors keep beating everyone?” to “of course they’re almost never going to lose.” Having four of the top 15 players in the league will do that.

As for if the team is actually better or not, I’m inclined to say yes, and not just because the offense has jived with Durant pouring in points at the most efficient clip of his career (25.9 points per game on 53.5 shooting from the field). I mostly say that due to how much better the bench—the primary concern when Durant was brought in—has looked after an initial feeling-out period. Ian Clark and JaVale McGee (yes, the same JaVale McGee of Shaqtin’ a Fool lore) have filled the void left by Ezeli and Leandro Barbosa, while rookies Patrick McCaw, Kevon Looney and Damian Jones have all flashed the tools to be viable contributors down the stretch.

On defense, the Death Lineup is far more exciting than it was a year ago—if only recently as effective. Durant is so much more dynamic than Barnes was, and his added length and shot-blocking makes an already fearsome unit even more dangerous.

The Warriors are still a work in progress, which is a dumb thing to say about the best team in the league. But they’ve been at least as exciting and statistically more impressive already.

The higher level of entertainment comes from the various storylines Durant’s addition has presented us. Obviously, there’s the Oklahoma City drama that we’ve witnessed three times already. There’s the two famous Draymond-Durant timeout blowups, where Durant had to be lectured about the “Golden State way” of doing things. Then, we have the trash talk that will seem inevitable during the playoffs.

The league is actually better after this move.

In his 9.3 minutes per game, McGee is averaging 6.1 points, 2.8 rebounds and 0.7 blocks on 67.5 percent shooting. That’s just about 24, 11, 3 and approximately 1,000 fouls per 36 minutes. You know who else is matching that in the entire NBA? Only Joel Embiid.

Not only that, his net rating with the four Warriors starters is plus-29.4 in 119 minutes so far this year, per NBA.com. Compare that to the plus-23 (508 minutes) the Warriors starters log with Zaza Pachulia in the lineup and you start to wonder who gets the job when the Georgian is healthy again.

For what its worth, that’s also higher than the net rating of the Megadeath Lineup (24.8 in 211 minutes).

He can Shaqt a fool all day if he keeps this up. #JaVale4President.

The real answer is a close call between Curry and Green, but I’m giving the edge to the Dubs’ defensive juggernaut. Though Golden State’s offense obviously takes a big step back without Steph’s wizardry, it’s still one of the league’s best with Durant and Thompson to pick up the slack. Take away Draymond in the middle, and the Dubs’ defensive cohesiveness crumbles, particularly against teams with an elite big. On offense, the team’s ball movement and playmaking also suffer greatly without the pick-and-roll maestro.

Green’s historic 10-steal triple-double against the Memphis Grizzlies—and Steve Kerr’s assessment of the “dominant” four-point performance—should tell you everything you need to know about what the do-everything forward means to this squad.

The way he forces defenses to sell out and compromise their basic principles is unique. His off-the-dribble shooting breaks basic defensive schemes and opens everything up for the other four Warriors on the floor. Game-planning never used to require figuring out how to stop a guy from shooting 30-footers in semi-transition. Now it does, and the trickled-down chaos his threatening skill set creates has an impact on every other element of the game.

And when those deep bombs fall, you can sense the demoralization in the opponent. Like a “well what’s the point of trying if he’s going to do that?”

No other Warrior brings that to the table.

This is a hard question to answer, mainly because Curry’s gravity as a perimeter threat is why they’re the Warriors. It’s how they clear the lanes for all those fancy sets and cuts, and how they’re able to assist on nearly every basket some nights. Guys stick to him like he’s Elmer’s glue. Nevertheless, Thompson is their best defender against shot-creators such as Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and anyone Steve Kerr doesn’t feel comfortable leaving Curry on. He doesn’t care that it drains his energy, and he doesn’t care if a tough shot gets made over him.

Thompson saved their Finals berth last May in OKC, and there could be more moments that mirror it during this year’s run.

Jesus, that also leaves out the likely Defensive Player of the Year.  Yep, the hardest question to answer.

If the question is, “Who could they least afford to lose this year in free agency, Durant or Curry?”…I would say Curry.