Steph Curry has to take the best point guard title from Damian Lillard

Damian Lillard is currently the best point guard in the NBA. Steph Curry has to take this title from Dame if he wants to be the best PG in the league again.

Stephen Curry was consistently the best point guard in the league for the last five seasons until the 2019/20 season. He led his time to five consecutive NBA Finals, winning three championships and grabbing two regular-season MVPs.

But in 2019/20, he was injured for the entire season and missed the playoffs. Damian Lillard then took over as the best point guard in the league.

Dame put the entire Blazers team on his back in 2020 and achieved statistical milestones that only a certain few had attained previously.

Curry was clearly the best point guard in the NBA when he helped drag an injured Warriors team to the 2018/19 finals. But when he broke his hand at the start of the 2019/20 season, he left the best point guard in the league title for someone else to grab.

Russell Westbrook had a slow start to the season, and Chris Paul was a steady presence with the Oklahoma City Thunder having a surprising season, but it was Lillard who improved as the season went on.

In previous years, Lillard had only ever been a bridesmaid when you looked at his statistical production and compared him to the other point guards in the league. He wasn’t leading categories or playing at a level higher than his contemporaries.

But come January 2020, Dame’s career took a different trajectory. Fans had seen his impossible buzzer-beating three to send Paul George and the Oklahoma City Thunder home the previous year, but the heroics that were coming, I don’t know if anyone expected them.

From the third of January onwards, including the NBA Bubble seeding games, Dame averaged 35 points a game, and the Blazers went 20 and 14 for the rest of the games he played.

He had the incredible six-game run where he averaged 48 points a game in January and February, and then he averaged 38 a game in the Bubble seeding games.

He also joined Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry as just the third player to shoot 40 percent from three while averaging 30 points a game over a regular season.

Come seasons end, it was a disappointing injury in the playoffs, which meant he couldn’t put his best foot forward in the playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers, but he had shown that he was firmly a top-five player in the league by winning the Bubble MVP.

The Blazers as a team didn’t have enough wins for him to be higher in the overall MVP voting, but he still finished 8th and was named to his third All-NBA second team.

Averaging 30 points a game and beating some of the NBA’s best teams while his own team was short-handed, Lillard showcased a level of play that few point guards in this league have attained.

Dame ranks first, followed by Chris Paul and then guys like Russell Westbrook, Kyle Lowry, and Kemba Walker. Curry has his chance in 2021 to regain his spot atop the NBA’s pyramid, but he needs to go head to head with Dame and push his team to a playoff berth.

For now, Dame sits atop the point guard rankings, after by far his best individual season.

With a stronger Blazer team this season who are fit and likely to push for home-court advantage in the playoffs in the Western Conference, Dame has a chance to stamp his name on a second All-NBA first team and maybe even a first MVP title.

Dame is in rare air atop the point guard pyramid, but he deserves to be there after a legendary 2020 season.