Because Curry and his Warriors are ratings gold for the league. This fourth Golden State Warriors championship in eight years solidified Curry’s spot in rarefied air — in the pantheon of NBA greatness — in many ways. Titles. Trophies. Scoring.

And popularity. This Finals run was yet another affirmation that he’s the league’s most popular player. Like Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan before him, Curry lifts the NBA’s profile beyond just hard-core hoops fanatics. And he helped pull the league out of a pandemic ratings malaise.

Ratings for the NBA Finals were up 22% over last year. It was the highest-rated Finals since 2019, which — of course — also featured Curry.

The Warriors had six of the top-10 rated regular-season games in the past year and having Curry & Co. back in the postseason boosted ratings significantly — 18% from a year ago — over the nine-week playoff run.

Since Curry entered the league in 2009, Finals games featuring the Warriors have averaged 19% more viewers than Finals games without them, according to Nielsen viewership numbers. Prior to the 2019 series, the highest rated Finals game was Game 7 of 2016, which drew a 15.8, pitting LeBron James vs. Curry. But it turns out that Curry doesn’t need a foil to be a draw. He doesn’t need to be going up against James. He doesn’t need to be teammates with Kevin Durant.

The strength behind those ratings is Curry’s widespread popularity. Granted, popularity is an intangible, subjective quality that is hard to measure. It isn’t a championship trophy (Curry has four on his resume), it isn’t an MVP trophy (Curry has three, two as the league MVP and one for the 2022 Finals). It isn’t an All-Star selection or a contract figure.

But it has become obvious over the past eight years that Curry is the most popular player in the NBA. You hear it in opposing arenas, when cheers erupt for him. You see it in the lines of people waiting to watch him warm up. You see it in his Q rating, which is why you can’t turn on your television without Curry trying to sell you a sandwich or crypto currency or a car. You see it in youth leagues, where everyone regardless of size, gender and age is trying to be Curry. And you see it in his fan base, which ranges from the smallest of children to the oldest of adults.

Curry appeals to NBA fans, but — perhaps more importantly — he appeals to non-NBA fans. He has cracked through the sports-specific barrier into the general public.

My late mother never paid attention to the NBA. That is, until Curry came along. Then she made a point of watching him and wanted to know everything about him.

She wasn’t alone. My friend’s mother, Lorraine Lowery, is the same way. Now 90, she grew up in Boston and has lived in Southern California for most of her adult life. Her son is an avid Lakers fan. Not Lorraine. She’s a Steph Curry fan and plans her schedule around his games. In Game 4 of the NBA Finals, she was so nervous she paced around her house and ended up taking a few swallows of her cooking wine to calm her nerves.

A former dancer and Ringling Bros. trapeze artist, Lorraine tells her son what she likes best.

“He’s so graceful.”

Curry is also relatable. At 6-foot-2 he’s a normal-size person who almost always has a smile on his face. Who wears his fame lightly and relatively modestly.

Sure, he’s cocky on the court — tapping his ring finger after draining a 3-pointer in a Finals elimination game is some serious swagger. Sure, he has rabbit ears when it comes to criticism — “I’m the petty king,” he proclaimed — and holds it tight as motivation. But he doesn’t stomp around the court as though it is his birthright to win a championship. He doesn’t seem overly impressed with himself.