Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors have had a relatively nondescript offseason thus far. They locked up Kevon Looney on a team-friendly deal. They also made some savvy veteran additions to replace the ones that left for a larger paycheck. But with a historically astronomical cap sheet, there's not much room to improve around the edges of a team doling out large sums of cash like nobody's business.

The best thing to aid their title hopes for next season, however, was one word that came out of a borderline NBA player's mouth dissing Stephen Curry. “One-dimensional,” former Brooklyn Nets point guard Mike James called the Warriors superstar.

“…Steph, like how he plays and how he gets stuff off, it’s just kind of one-dimensional at times if that makes sense,” James said in a recent appearance on the Players Choice podcast. He’s not the primary ball-handler a lot and for a point guard that kind of bothers me. But he does score off the dribble so I mean he’s a superstar. When you’re picking your top five, you’re kind of just nit-picking.”

I thought about including Mike James on the title of this article. But calling it “Mike James's ‘one-dimensional' diss at Stephen Curry” just felt wrong. The man played two seasons in the NBA and didn't even total 50 contests where he actually took the court. He doesn't even deserve to be mentioned on a headline with a two-time MVP, reigning Finals MVP, and four-time NBA champion.

Now that slander in of itself isn't all that significant. Talking heads and former players criticize Stephen Curry all the time. A virtual nobody who had cups of coffee in the league giving up a spicy take doesn't matter in a vacuum. But what happened just a few days later, after the story went viral, was what gave it significance as arguably the most impactful thing to happen for the Warriors this offseason – Stephen Curry acknowledged it.

In a recent press conference from his basketball camp, Curry was asked about him potentially taking on his campers one-on-one. The Warriors point guard was frank in that he'd cook every single one of them. (For the record, he did in fact cook. ) Then he gave a subtle nod towards Mike James's incendiary comments:

“Oh, it's all bad for them. All bad for them,” Steph Curry said with a straight face. “Even as one-dimensional as I am,” he added before winking at the reporters in attendance and erupting in laughter.

Stephen Curry has admitted that he takes note of all the criticism hurled against him. He's the type who literally scrolls through Twitter at halftime to see how fans are reacting to his play in order to motivate himself for the rest of the game.

But this last title felt very much like Curry's coronation. There's no Kevin Durant on the roster to water down the championship run. There weren't any major injuries to opposing stars like there were back in 2015. He didn't inexplicably lose the Finals MVP either and instead exorcised any playoff demons that have haunted him all these years to erase the narrative that he doesn't play in all caps like he usually does when he catches fire. He did everything and more.

There's nothing to hold against Stephen Curry anymore. He's a bona fide champion with zero asterisks and deserves the red carpet treatment that he's been receiving since his confetti shower two months ago.

If anything, the biggest need for the Warriors offseason is motivation. That's not to say that Curry now lacks motivation or would have played any less hard to add another ring or two before he hangs up his New Balance sneakers. But it's been widely admitted by former NBA champions – particularly by Warriors head coach Steve Kerr himself – that it's much harder to win after climbing the mountaintop than it is to go through the grind of winning it after falling short the previous season.

Hearing some random like Mike James discredit Stephen Curry after he was the last man standing this season was exactly the kind of fuel that needed to be added to the fire. In the grand scheme of things, it's an insignificant jab by someone who's most interesting trait as an NBA player is being Kevin Durant's friend.

But just as the great Michael Jordan posits on The Last Dance, sometimes you need to take things personally.