Golden State Warriors: Remembering Stephen Curry’s unanimous MVP

Stephen Curry had perhaps the greatest individual regular season of all-time in 2015-16 with the Golden State Warriors.

It’s been four years since Stephen Curry blessed the NBA world with one of the greatest MVP seasons in league history. The Golden State Warriors jumped to new heights and Curry solidified himself as a legend in 2016.

We all remember the obvious stuff. First-ever unanimous MVP. League record 73 wins. Broke the record for most 3-pointers in a single season. (Blew a 3-1 lead?). However, it’s easy to forget some of the smaller details from this year that made his run to the top so fascinating.

Let’s begin with the fact that the Dubs were coming off their first championship in over 40 years. The Warriors led the league in wins and beat out LeBron James for the title but many discredited this series as Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were both injured.

Rather than lay back and allow a championship hangover to dull their next season, the Warriors used their critics as motivation and looked to make a statement in 2015-16.

The Dubs began the year by rattling off a record 24 consecutive games. During this stretch, Curry posted 32.5 points and drilled over five 3-pointers a night as the Warriors won each game by an average margin of 13.6 points. They even dismantled the Memphis Grizzlies in a 50 point massacre.

The fun didn’t end there. As we know, the Warriors went on to win a record 73 games and went the entire season without losing back-to-back games. Curry was magnificent throughout, scoring 40+ points a total of 13 times.

By the end of the year, Curry had notched the greatest shooting season of all-time. Not only did he shatter the record for 3-pointers in a single season (116 more than his previous record) but he became the first player to average 30+ points on an unbelievable 50/45/90 shooting clip.

Curry was unconscious for the entire season and there wasn’t anything opponents could do to stop him. Tuning in every night to watch Steph dominate was truly a breathtaking experience and it is uncertain if we will ever see something like this happen again.

For reference, Curry’s 2015-16 season ranks as the 9th highest PER of all-time, behind the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and LeBron James (Giannis Antetokonmpo is on pace to join them this season). He is the only point guard in the top 10 and is the only player of the bunch to shoot above 45 percent from the 3-point line.

Keep in mind, Curry accomplished all of these things while playing just 34.2 minutes per game. In total, he played nearly 200 fewer minutes than James did in his near-unanimous MVP season from 2012-13.

This season was the perfect storm for Curry. He was at his absolute peak in terms of scoring and struck fear into every team he faced. There is no doubt this was one of the best MVP runs of all-time.