Though it seems as if Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook has the inside track on this year's NBA MVP award after averaging a triple-double for the entire season, Houston Rockets guard James Harden is also drawing some interest from voters.

However, the forgotten man in the MVP race is Golden State Warriors sharpshooter Stephen Curry - the two-time defending winner of the award.

Despite having a worse performance this year than his record-setting 2015-16 campaign, Curry is still averaging 25.3 points and 6.6 assists a game and has made an NBA-leading 324 three-pointers. However, according to FiveThirtyEight.com, Curry's value can't be measured fully using traditional stats (though his 324 long balls are second in NBA history to the outrageous 402 he made last year).

As you can see in the chart below (via FiveThirtyEight.com), while Westbrook and LeBron James take their teams from negative net point totals to positive net point totals when they're on the floor, Curry elevates the Warriors from minimal positive net points to an impressive +17 net points when he's on the court. The other MVP candidates don't have nearly as much of an impact on their team's success as Curry:

So, while Curry only averages 6.6 assists per game, which is far below Harden's NBA-leading average of 11.2 dimes per night and Westbrook's 10.4 mark, the Warriors are better scorers when their star point guard is on the court.

Curry, in addition to being a great all-around player himself, makes his teammates around him better, too, and does so at a rate better than any of the other MVP candidates.

However, since the Warriors are "only" 67-15 this year after going 73-9 last season, and since Curry is averaging nearly five fewer points than he was in 2015-16 while making 78 fewer three-pointers, he's not generating much MVP buzz.

So, while Westbrook and Harden are (deservedly) the front-runners for this year's MVP award, it would be silly to suggest that Curry is having a "down" year. The only thing he's done wrong is take a slight step back from the numbers he put up in 2015-16 - numbers the likes of which the NBA had never seen before.

However, if Curry and the Warriors are able to win their second title in three years, it's a safe bet that the star point guard will be just fine with not winning the MVP award.

After all, the NBA is all about winning rings. MVPs are nice, but at the end of the day, if you don't end up leading your team to a title or two (or three or four or five), you won't be as frequently mentioned among the best players ever to play the game.