Stephen Curry has replaced LeBron James as the best basketball player in the world

Move over, LeBron James: You are no longer the best basketball player on the planet.

LeBron has passed the torch, and what is amazing is who the torch was passed to and how convincing the move has been.

The new best player in the world is not Kevin Durant, who has long been the second-best in the world. It is not Anthony Davis, despite the assumption of many that Davis was the heir apparent.

Rather, it is that shooter out of Davidson College, Stephen Curry.

And how did the 6-foot-3 (wink, wink), not-really-a-shooting-guard, not-really-a-point-guard ascend to the throne of World's Greatest Basketball Player just nine years after barely being recruited out of high school?

He became the perfect basketball weapon, a force who can't be guarded and can only be stopped if he stops himself.

We all know about his great shooting and incredible range. But what separates Curry is that he doesn't need off-the-ball movement and picks to create space for a shot. He has an amazing ability to create his own space, and he doesn't even need that much.

And he can shoot from anywhere on the court, so the defense can't ease up and they can't sit back, even from deep.

The combination of not needing a lot of space and having incredible range creates a huge problem for defenses.

Whoever is guarding Curry needs to respect his range and play him tight. Curry leads the NBA with 110 points on pull-up shots, 28 more than anybody else, and he is making a whopping 48.8% of those shots.

That means getting a hand on him 25 feet from the basket, an area defenders are not used to guarding.

But when a defender does come up tight, Curry is so quick that he can then blow past the defender for an easy layup.

Or an easy dish to a big man for a wide-open bucket. Once he has a step past the defender, the defense is broken.

So, the defender can't play off Curry, because that is basically like giving him a 22-foot layup, and the defender can't play too tight, because Curry will just use his quickness and blow right by.

The only other alternative is to send two to three defenders at Curry.

He will also beat that.

Notice how calm he stays despite being surrounded by three defenders. Rather than panic and rush the dribble, Curry actually hesitates on the dribble after going behind his back, waiting for the ball to be in a better spot for his left hand.

Boston Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas summed up the greatness of Curry with a column in The Players' Tribune, in which he explains why it is so difficult to guard Curry, noting that what makes him dangerous is that on defense, "you're always guessing."

Thomas says you have to respect the three-point shot, saying "that's where everything starts for him." But Thomas notes that Curry is not thinking three-point shot when he gets the ball:

I don't think he ever goes down the court thinking 'I'm pulling up' or 'I'm taking it to the basket.' He reads the court so well that he doesn't need a plan. He can just rely on his instincts and react to the defense, and he can do it all, so he takes whatever you give him ... Steph plays like he's a wide receiver in football running an option route on every play. Everything he does depends on what the defender is doing. So when he's coming at you, if you're afraid of the three - which you should be - and you give him too much space, he'll knock it down. If you play too far up on the three, he'll take you off the dribble. If he beats you on the first step because you were playing too far up, say goodbye. He's already gone. If you sink back with him, he has the shiftiness and the quick release to step back and shoot ... And the worst part is that he's such a good passer, nobody's leaving their man to step up and help. You're on your own.

But what is really scary about Curry is that not only was his MVP season last year not a fluke, he has gotten better this season.

It has only been nine games, but Curry's shooting has improved and his numbers are up. The most striking improvements are his eFG%, which adjusts field goal percentage (FG%) by giving more value to three-pointers, and PER - Player Efficiency Rating - which measures a player's overall production. Curry's 36.2 PER is 6.2 better than any other player. The league average is 15.

Not only is Curry making shots at a higher rate, but he is taking them from deep more often.

Last season, Curry led the NBA with 646 three-point attempts and 286 three-pointers made. This year, he is on pace to shoot 884 three-pointers and make 401.

Both would be NBA records by a mile, as nobody in NBA history has ever attempted 700 three-pointers in a season or made 300.

Curry has also gotten more aggressive in general.

When Curry came into the NBA, the knock was that he wasn't skilled enough with the ball to be a point guard and he was not big enough to be a shooting guard.

After Curry hit the national spotlight in the NCAA tournament during his sophomore season at Davidson, he decided to skip a chance to jump to the NBA and instead returned to school for his junior year, which would be his first chance to play point guard at the college level.

While the decision cost Curry millions up front, it paid off in the long term as he became a top-level point guard in the NBA with incredible passing skills. He averaged 8.5 assists per 36 minutes the past two seasons.

But this year, Curry's assists per 36 minutes is down to 6.1, his lowest figure since his rookie year. At the same time, he is taking a career-high 20 shots per game.

Last season, when the Warriors won the title and Curry won the MVP, it was looked at by many as a nice, cute story. Both were great, but certainly there would be a hangover this season and other great teams and players would step up.

Instead, the Warriors are 9-0, and barring a serious injury, Curry probably already has his second-straight MVP award wrapped up.

LeBron James is having back issues, will likely play fewer minutes this year, and has already said that Kevin Love is going to be the focal point of the Cavs' offense. Meanwhile, the Rockets and last year's MVP runner-up, James Harden, have struggled out of the gate, and Kevin Durant is hurt again and will have his second-straight season of missing big chunks of games. Finally, the Pelicans start, with all their injuries and 1-7 record, shows that Anthony Davis just isn't ready to carry a team.

Curry is the best player in the world and it doesn't look like anybody is coming for the championship anytime soon.