Stephen Curry is more valuable than any other player in the NBA, let alone anyone else on the Golden State Warriors.

Or is he?

Draymond Green has never been more vital to the Warriors than he is now, and it showed during their 112-110 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night—Golden State's first game without Green this season.

Curry is considered the better, more accomplished player, and rightly so. But as the Warriors continue their march toward the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls' record 72 victories, Green is doing something that would have been deemed unfathomable just last season: rivaling the importance of his MVP running mate.

The Separation Approximation

Neither Curry nor Green has needed to extensively experience life without the other. 

The two have spent north of 1,100 minutes on the floor together this season—more than 90 percent of Curry's court time, and more than 85 percent of Green's. Golden State is outscoring opponents by an indomitable 23.3 points per 100 possessions with both stars in the lineup, obliterating its incredible overall season average of plus-13.5. 

That net rating predictably plummets when the Warriors play with only one of Curry or Green, and neither is able to sustain the team's normal differential when playing alone: 

The Warriors, even after their loss to Denver, are better with just Curry than they are with only Green, and that's to be expected. Curry is the reigning MVP and odds-on favorite, per Basketball-Reference, to secure the honor again. It makes sense that he can carry the Warriors further on his own.

But his numbers benefit from a smaller sample size; Green has spent more time on the court without his companion than vice versa. His 187 minutes away from Curry comfortably exceed the point guard's 118 without Green.

To further complicate matters, though, Golden State's net-rating deficit is larger without Green:

The difference is marginal—one point per 100 possessions. But it still exists. 

And yet, at the same time, both Curry and Green are in identical territory as the only two players whose absences Golden State cannot statistically overcome.

Different Impacts...Sort Of

Both Curry and Green are having historically brilliant seasons, the significance of which helps separate their impact.

Curry is blazing through the best offensive campaign of any player in NBA history. He leads the league in scoring and will once again shatter his own record for three-pointers made in a single season. He drilled 286 triples in 2014-15 and should end 2015-16 with close to 370.

Only nine other times during the three-point era has a player averaged at least 30 points per 36 minutes, as Curry is now. The highest true shooting percentage—the cumulative measurement of two-point, three-point and free-throw efficiency—in those instances was Kiki Vandeweghe's 61.8 from 1983-84. Curry's true shooting percentage is 67.4, and he's already attempted 355 more threes than Vandeweghe did.

His offensive box plus-minus (OBPM)—defined by Basketball-Reference as "a box score estimate of the offensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team"—is equally absurd. He has an OBPM of 11.8 through 37 appearances, putting him in line to destroy the previous record of 9.8 set by Michael Jordan (twice) and Tracy McGrady.

Green's season is unprecedented in a more balanced sense. He is the league's foremost triple-double threat, but in the most unorthodox way. 

There has never been another player of his (generously listed) 6'7" stature who can regularly register double figures in points, rebounds, assists, steals or blocks. Golden State's small-ball "Death Squad" doesn't exist if he can't defend every position, and he stretches defenses paper-thin on the offensive end with a 40-plus percent three-point clip.

More recently, Green has become the primary reason why Curry enjoys so much offensive freedom. He wouldn't have the flexibility to work on and off the ball, vacillating between point guard and de facto shooting guard duties, if Green couldn't blast through half-court defenses off the dribble.

Or collapse defenders to perfection in transition:

Or attack and react off pick-and-rolls:

Or, most importantly, set screens like a superhero:

Golden State, for its part, is capitalizing on this complete package more than ever. As SI.com's Ben Golliver observed of Green's offensive role:

He’s not just playing more. He’s doing more every minute that he’s on the court. In 2013–14, when Green was still backing up David Lee for coach Mark Jackson, he was touching the ball about as often every game as typical fourth or fifth options like Wesley Johnson and Marvin Williams. Last season, in a starting role under coach Steve Kerr, Green touched the ball as often as skilled All-Star big men like Marc Gasol and Chris Bosh. This year, under interim coach Luke Walton, Green is touching the ball every game nearly as often as ball-dominant, All-NBA caliber guards like Chris Paul and James Harden. That is a serious, serious come-up.

Green is parlaying his expanded usage into unprecedented production. No one has ever matched his current rebounding, assist, steal and block percentages in the same season, and he is the only player since Magic Johnson in 1981-82 and Oscar Robertson in 1961-62 to average 15 points, nine rebounds and seven assists per 36 minutes.

All anecdotal and statistical accounts have Green as, without question, the more potent defender. But Curry still grades out as the more valuable player overall, and it's not close:

Even though Curry ranks as a slightly below-average defensive contributor, his BPM nearly doubles that of Green. And this chasm between ceilings doesn't taint his cumulative impact, nor does it decidedly make him a one-way player.

The Warriors have crafted a first-rate defense with Curry in the fold, they are statistically stingier with him on the floor and interim head coach Luke Walton, like Steve Kerr before him, seldom seeks to stash him on the opponent's weakest offensive threat.

Superstar Peers

For yet another turn of statistical events, we turn to Adam Fromal of Bleacher Report's FATS projection model, which uses historical comparisons to examine how today's teams would fare with and without a certain player.

With the caveat that the fully healthy Warriors don't have a worthy historical sibling, it turns out they would grab more victories without Curry than without Green:

It's worth reiterating that the Warriors have played more basketball without Curry and, therefore, have a better idea of who they are and how they'll play under those circumstances. These numbers will change, perhaps shifting more in favor of Curry as Green rests and the Warriors better understand how to operate without him.

Most of the statistical evidence says Curry is more pivotal to Golden State's success, in large part because it's impossible to overstate his offensive value. The NBA has never played host to a player with his obscene blend of shot-making and playmaking abilities, and Golden State depends on him more than anyone, including Green, to create space—which is everything in today's Association.

“He’s doing things that nobody in the history of the game has ever done,” Kerr said of Curry back in December, per the San Jose Mercury News' Tim Kawakami. “I told Steve Nash a few weeks ago, he’s like Nash on steroids."

Green is also doing things nobody else has ever done, championing a role he essentially invented. It's him who makes the Warriors what they are, more versatile than any team before them. It's Curry who maximizes what they are—whatever they are.

Thus, the dilemma.

For the rest of the league.

Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited and are accurate leading into games on Jan. 14.

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.