Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry won’t win MVP, but he deserves to

Although Stephen Curry doesn’t have the necessary qualifications to beat out the other MVP candidates, the Golden State Warriors superstar is having the best season of anyone in the NBA this year.

The Golden State Warriors haven’t had enough team success for Stephen Curry to win MVP, but he deserves plenty of recognition.

Typically, MVP winners fit one of two molds. They are either the best player on the league’s best team that season – or have had such an incredible, statistical and narrative-driven run that they have enough of an argument to win the award over whoever was on the top team that year.

Of course, the underlying issue here is that no matter how great an individual run is, that player’s respective team must be winning games. At the very least, they need to comfortably fit in the playoff picture.

It’s extremely rare for a team lower than three in the standings to have an MVP winner on the roster that season. The last time this happened was 2016-17 when Russell Westbrook won despite being the sixth-seed in the West. Before that? Michael Jordan in 1988, who won the MVP as the leader of the fourth-seeded Chicago Bulls.

Considering the Warriors are in ninth place in the West, I’d say there’s a slim chance the voters choose him over names like Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo or even James Harden this season. And yet, it’s incredibly difficult to argue any of those players have been better than Curry.

Curry has been a full-on nuclear weapon this season for Golden State. He’s averaging a career-high 31.0 points per game on near 50/40/90 shooting splits. The only other player to average 30+ on those splits? Stephen Curry in 2016.

The difference is, the Dubs won 73 games that year. As of now, they’d be lucky to hit 40 wins (granted, it’s a shortened season). Still, the fact remains this team just isn’t successful enough to warrant Curry winning the MVP award.

It goes without saying this isn’t Curry’s fault. His supporting cast has been underwhelming, to say the least. And, even some of Curry’s greatest shooting performances have been squandered in the closing seconds by his teammates (see Draymond Green clanking an open layup against Boston the other night.)

But forget about wins, it’s getting hard to ignore what Curry is doing. He’s scored 30+ in 11 straight games, the most of any 33-year-old ever. During his last five games, he’s drilled 46-of-83 3-point attempts, an unbelievable number as he’s scoring 40 points per game since March 29.

The Warriors are winning as of late, too. They are 7-4 over their last 11 and notched an impressive win in Philadelphia over the top-seeded 76ers. If they climb the standings all the way to seventh – could Curry steal the award?

This has been a strange season and I don’t think anyone will be upset at Jokic or Embiid winning the MVP. Nonetheless, Curry deserves recognition for his incredible season.