Steph Curry Named Player of the Month for January

Steph Curry was honored for his efforts in January with the Western Conference Player of the Month award. In fact, he has a history of dominating the month of January.

It’s no secret that Stephen Curry is the key to unlocking the Golden State Warriors’ offense and with numbers like 32, 29, 45, and 32, it’s easy to see why.

No, these digits do not make up a combination to a vault that contains a million dollars (but if you have one that does, DM me); they do, however, represent Curry’s scoring prowess to kick off 2018.

In the first four games of January, Curry put up these numbers on 53% shooting from the field and 47% from beyond the arc while also averaging 6.3 APG, 6 RPG and 1.8 SPG.

His red-hot start to the month garnered him his first Player of the Week recognition for this season on January 8 (his 11th overall). Since then, aside from the outlier that was the dreadful 129-99 loss to the Utah Jazz on January 30,in which he scored 14 points, Curry consistently balled out during the first 31 days of the new year.

Curry played in 12 of the team’s 14 January games and concluded the month with averages of 29.5 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 6.7 APG and 1.5 SPG while shooting 51% from the field and 46% from downtown. The month may have brought some challenging losses (i.e. the Jazz/nightlife game and the Rockets thriller) but it also gave us another classic Curry game when he went for 49 points in a win against the Boston Celtics on January 27, besting (rival?) Kyrie Irving, who also had an outstanding game of his own.

The month also saw Curry reach another milestone in his still thriving career: in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on January 25, he became the fifth player in Warriors’ history to score 14,000 points for his career.

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I know, I know; you’re shocked that one of the best shooters ever posted numbers like this, right? Well, if that doesn’t surprise you, how about the fact that for his career the month of January has been, in the words of Saturday Night Live great Garrett Morris, “very, very good” to Curry.

According to Basketball Reference, Curry’s production in January stands out as being some of the most efficient work he does over the course of a regular season.

In his nine-year career, Curry has dished the most assists (805), stole the most balls (218), grabbed the third-most rebounds (485), made the most threes (435), played the most minutes (4,174), played in/started the most games (119), and averaged his third-highest PPG (24.1) all in, yes you guessed it, the month of January!

Upon reading this information, you’re probably saying to yourself those numbers are skewed because he probably just benefits from having played the most games during this particular month. And, while it does make sense that more games equals more chances to produce, it should not be ignored that this would also translate into more opportunities to fail.

If you compare the months (November [112], December [103], January and March [114]) in which Curry has played 100+ games for his career, these numbers still top the charts. He has a higher usage percentage in November (27.8) and March (28.5) than January (27.5) and averages the lowest RPG in January (4.1) too, but he still manages to step up even more in all areas of his game. Needless to say, Curry has answered the call.

The analysis centered around Curry’s amazing offensive game could probably fill several books or be the subject of a documentary or two and yet somehow it feels like this interesting trend would still go unnoticed. Sure, he may have benefited from a little extra rest this year, as evidenced by head coach Steve Kerr’s comments via The Mercury News earlier last month:

"“He looks like it’s opening week and not January,” Kerr said of Curry. “A lot of the other guys are out there dragging. Steph is firing on all cylinders.”"

But if anything, it shows that Curry missed those 11 games with ankle issues to end 2017 and came back sharper, knocking the rust off very quickly.

January is often viewed as a “make or break” month in terms of setting in motion the New Year’s resolutions you proclaimed on your Twitter on New Year’s Eve. In Curry’s case, it seems apparent that his primary resolution since his days in college has been to watch the ball drop through the net at a highly-efficient rate to start the new year.

Next: Stephen Curry May Be Having His Best Season of His Career

As we exit month one and transition to one of the best months of year (for several reasons), expect to see Curry’s game elevate once again like it does almost every year. Who knows, we might be back here doing another one of these for February….wouldn’t that be Steph-tacular?

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