For Stephen Curry to win MVP, the Warriors must finish as the No. 6 seed

Traditionally, the Most Valuable Player is on one of the top teams in their respective conference.

For Warriors guard Stephen Curry to have any shot at the award, the Dubs need to get up to the No. 6 seed prior to the postseason’s commencement. The playoffs begin in under a month, and the Warriors have several winnable games left on their schedule.

Over their next six, the Warriors take on the Rockets, Pelicans twice, Timberwolves and Thunder twice. Outside of a few games against Zion Williamson‘s Pelicans, that schedule is about as easy as it gets.

If Stephen Curry wants to claim his third MVP award, he’s going to need to propel the Golden State Warriors into an automatic playoff berth.

Given the way the play-in tournament is set up, that automatic playoff berth doesn’t necessarily mean that the team gets a top-eight seed. The Warriors are technically in contention for a play-in spot right now, sitting at No. 10.

While that’s great and no team will want to see Curry in the postseason, getting that 10th seed is not going to do him any justice when it comes to the Most Valuable Player race, one that Curry thinks he should be leading.

It should be a three-man race, and while most favor both Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, there’s no denying what Curry has been doing is anything short of MVP worthy. For starters, he set the record for most threes in a calendar month.

He’s also leading the NBA in scoring, something the Warriors desperately needed from him. Curry’s now topping 31 points per game. That said, even head coach Steve Kerr knows that Curry’s claim to the trophy is strong.

But, the two-time MVP doesn’t think he’ll win it, and there aren’t many people that think he should be a top-three candidate either. Part of that has to be on their record. The Warriors have hovered around .500 for most of the season.

With Houston’s James Harden and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo the last couple of players awarded the honor, they proved that winning a conference is of utmost importance, moreso than just insane numbers.

Sadly, that’s where Curry gets dinged, and unless he can get up to a top-six seed, which they’re only about 2.5 games out of, the Warriors’ guard doesn’t stand a chance at breaking into the final two in the race.