51-point outburst a scary reminder that Curry heats up as season progresses

The Golden State Warriors have the league's best record at 39-8 and Steph Curry is one of the two or three leading candidates for the Most Valuable Player award at the midway point of the season.

Here's a terrifying thought brought to mind by Curry's unbelievable 51-point outburst on Wednesday night: Curry historically heats up as the season goes on.

That's right. An MVP candidate on the league's best team generally begins heating up around this time. The man averaging 23.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 8.1 assists, shooting 48.9 percent overall and 40.4 percent from long range can be expected to get a little better as the season wears on.

As ridiculous as that may sound, Curry's played six seasons and 383 games to this point, and the evidence is there. That's not to say the trend means anything or is even sustainable, but it's interesting nonetheless. Have a look at Curry's point production and shooting as the seasons develop, month-by-month:

This is hardly uniform, but it's also something that's been a multi-season trend. With some exceptions, Curry's performance has trended upward later in the season. Each thin line in the graph below represents an individual season, while the thick, pink line represents Curry's total career performance.

Curry had a down December by his lofty standards, but was torrid in November and January, and his February is off to a great start after Wednesday's outing.

Trends from prior seasons can't be extrapolated forward, but again, it's fun to think of Curry ratcheting up his offense out of the All-Star break. His 3-point shooting, in particular, has been the worst of his career - a laughable fact given he's hitting 40.4 percent of his triples - and is due for some regression to his 43.3 percent career mean.

Because the Warriors need to get better, and Curry needs even more on his MVP resume.