The NBA season is coming to a close, and the bay area’s team, the Golden State Warriors, has completely handled the Western Conference thanks to their MVP candidate, Point Guard Stephen Curry. According to basketball-reference.com, Curry is currently averaging 23.3 points, 7.9 assists and 2 steals per game, but it is the flare with which he gets those numbers and makes this player so special.
Standing at 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighing only 185 pounds, the 27 year-old out of Davidson College does not have a ton of meat on his bones to get him through the grind of a rigorous 82-game season. A player of his size has to be able to shoot the three-ball, and Curry is arguably the best shooter in the league as he averages 3.3 three-pointers a game.
This year’s NBA MVP award needs to go to a player in the Western Conference, seeing how this conference is completely and utterly better than its counterpart, the Eastern Conference. Seemingly the only player in the East making a formidable campaign for the MVP award is Lebron James, a player who has already won four of these awards.
When it comes to the West, however, Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder and James Harden of the Houston Rockets have had incredible seasons as well. Westbrook has put up triple-doubles seemingly every game since the All-Star Break, and Harden is scoring in every way possible for the 53-24 Rockets while averaging 27.7 points per game, which leads the league.
What Westbrook and Harden have going for them is they have had to carry their team while stars like Kevin Durant and Dwight Howard have seen their seasons de-railed by injuries. Russell Westbrook has been especially impressive with Durant out indefinitely; but the Thunder might not even make the playoffs, as they are fighting for the 8th-place spot in the Western Conference. However, if the Warriors called Curry’s number as much as the Thunder did Westbrook’s, Curry’s stats would be monumentally better than the other great point guards in the conference.
Plus, the award should go to somebody that does not just score, but scores with style. Curry can hit the long ball, stop on a dime and score, and pull off crazy scoop shots that bring us back to the past. I’m not saying Harden and Westbrook do not score with style, it just seems like they always do it the same way night in and night out.
Whether it is Harden driving to the basket and getting fouled on the way up, or Westbrook rampaging in the paint with his lightning quickness, they seem to score in the same way every night. There is nothing wrong with that, as teams have obviously not been able to figure out the two offensive wizards. What Curry has brought to the table this year that the other two have not really done this season is that on any given night Curry could go off and break some shooting record, putting on a show for not just every Warrior fan, but for every basketball fan.
The only knock on Curry would be the fact that his team is spectacular. Every analyst on ESPN will tell you that an MVP should be a player on a playoff team. In this instance, haters could say Curry has more support than any other candidate, and that statement would not be false.
I think all the talk of Curry having too much support is bogus, as without him the team would have no facilitator and no number one seed in the Western Conference. Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr brings out the best in all of the players on the Warriors roster, and Curry has also taken his game to the next level, which leaves me wondering: Where would the Warriors be if they had traded him instead of Monta Ellis?