New award should honour Golden State Warriors’ superstar Stephen Curry
The NBA unveiled six new trophies on Tuesday that will be given to recipients of major individual awards. Among them was Golden State Warriors’ legend Wilt Chamberlain, and a new ‘Clutch Player of the Year’ award who’ll earn a trophy named after Los Angeles Lakers great Jerry West.
The decision to add another award does open a can of worms on what the NBA could do for the current players that are building unparalleled legacies — the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and the Warriors’ Stephen Curry.
Immediately post his retirement, the NBA should create a three-point award honouring Golden State Warriors’ superstar Stephen Curry.
Fortunately for Curry and the NBA, the two-time MVP has one defining skill that stands him out from any other player in NBA history. His three-point shooting records make it easy to name some kind of shooting award after him, provided it’s an appropriate honour to immortalize his legacy.
The easiest thing to do would be design a trophy that can be awarded to the yearly three-point contest winner at All-Star weekend. It makes sense — Curry’s the best three-point shooter of all-time and he’s won the award multiple times — 2015 and 2021.
However, does the gimmicky feel of All-Star weekend really do justice to Curry’s legacy? Perhaps it does since the All-Star Game MVP is now named after the late great Kobe Bryant. However, the league could also commemorate Curry in conjunction with the trophies they announced earlier this week.
The leader in three-point field-goal makes each season could be awarded with the Stephen Curry trophy — an appropriate recognition of Curry’s dominance in the category over the last decade. He’s led the league seven times — all in the last ten seasons. That’s four more than a host of players who are next best, including James Harden who’s won the award in the remaining three seasons in the ten-year span.
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As far as immortalizing a single player in an individual award, this is about as ‘no-brainer’ as one could get. Maybe the league would wait a few years to let the dust settle once he does retire, but would anyone really complain if they put the idea into action the season immediately following Curry’s glittering career?