How Stephen Curry can beat the odds to win a third straight NBA MVP
The Warriors' superstar tries to become the fourth player in league history to do this
By
Brad Botkin
•
9 min read
Stephen Curry spent last season making the seemingly impossible look impossibly routine. He made 402 3-pointers. He won the scoring title while shooting 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from three and 90 percent from the free-throw line. He led his team to 73 regular-season wins.
None of those things had ever been done. Not even once. By anyone.
He did them all in one season.
It netted him his second straight MVP award, this time unanimously, which had also never been done before. This year he's aiming to become just the fourth player in NBA history to win three straight MVPs. Larry Bird did it from 1984-86. Before that, you have to go all the way back to the 1960s, when Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain each did it once.
Elite company, to say the least.
For what it's worth, Vegas, in spite of these long historical odds, currently lists Curry among the favorites to win the award. In fact, only Russell Westbrook, the current 4-1 favorite, is considered a better bet. And yet, even for Curry, this seems like a long shot ... at least on paper.
Just look at the list of names that have won two straight MVPs but failed to win a third: Michael Jordan. Magic Johnson. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. LeBron James. Tim Duncan. Steve Nash. Obviously, this will not be easy. A lot of things have to go right. Very few things, if anything at all, can go wrong. But it's doable. For Stephen Curry, anything is doable.
Here's a blueprint for how it can happen.
The Warriors must lead the league in wins
If this doesn't happen, Curry has absolutely no chance to win MVP. Neither does Kevin Durant, for that matter. Expectations are simply too high for this Warriors team. People, including voters, expect damn-near perfection. LeBron faced the same problem in 2010-11 when he left Cleveland to form his own kind of super-team in Miami.
That year, Derrick Rose earned all but one first-place vote in being named MVP -- even though LeBron averaged more points, more rebounds, more steals and had both a higher shooting percentage and higher win shares mark. LeBron, in every measurable way, was the better player.
But voter fatigue is real. By the time you win two straight MVPs, voters are looking for reasons NOT to vote for you rather than the other way around, and LeBron gave them all the reason they needed when his Heat stumbled early and ultimately finished with 58 wins and as the No. 2 seed in the East ... four games behind Rose's 62-win Bulls.
Curry will suffer the same fate if his Warriors fall short in any capacity. They have to lead the league in wins, and more than likely, they have to do it with an impressive number. They don't have to win 74 or even 70. But they can't win 60 either. No. 1 seed or not, a 13-win decline is not going to cut it. Not with these expectations. Not with Kevin Durant on board.
The good news for Curry is that, barring injury, I can't envision any scenario in which Golden State doesn't win at least 67 or 68 games, and even that feels conservative. They're just too good. Too deep. Their supposedly vaunted perimeter defense could be somewhat exposed without the back-end protection of Andrew Bogut, who they'll miss more than people realize, but this team is ridiculous. That Death Lineup with Durant at the 4 is criminal. They're going to set records we've never even kept track of.
So yes, I'm saying the Warriors will easily lead the league in wins, and when they do, Curry's biggest competition for MVP will probably become his own teammate.
Which leads me to point No. 2 ...
Curry has to be the Warriors' best player
This is what makes Curry's situation different, and realistically even more challenging, than any of the aforementioned players who won two straight MVPs. Yes, those guys had to deal with voter fatigue. Yes, they all had their own unique narratives to combat, particularly LeBron and the backlash of hate he had to swallow in the wake of his Cleveland defection. But none of them were ever in question as the best player on their own team.
The fact is, very rarely have two players the caliber of Curry and Durant, both in their prime, come together on one team. There is, of course, one fairly recent comp.
In 1999-2000, the Lakers were the best team in the league, and Shaq and Kobe were two of the best players. Shaq won the MVP. Kobe finished 12th. In reality, there just weren't enough votes -- or shots -- to go around on one team, and Shaq emerged as the alpha at 29.7 points per game to Kobe's 22.5.
Similarly, if either Curry or Durant appreciably separates himself from the other in terms of scoring, in all likelihood, that's the one who will emerge as the bigger MVP threat.
Will such a separation happen? Perhaps. In theory, Curry could take a voluntary backseat in the interest of keeping both Durant and Klay Thompson, and to a lesser degree Draymond Green, offensively engaged. Under those circumstances, with the kind of space and shots Durant will be afforded in this offense, it's not hard to imagine him scoring 30 or more a night, even in reduced minutes.
On the other hand, nobody scores faster, or more efficiently, than Curry, who has proven he doesn't need very many minutes or shots to put up all-time numbers. Last season he nearly averaged a point per minute, 30.1 in just over 34 minutes while sitting out 22 fourth quarters, which is ludicrous. Even with Durant, who is probably one of the five best scorers in NBA history, on board, nobody should be surprised if it is Curry, once again, who leads the league in scoring.
That said, I don't personally see a Shaq-Kobe scoring disparity playing out here. If I had to guess, I would say Curry and Durant will each average between 25 and 27, maybe 28, per night. They're both going to have a lot of huge games. Curry will have the assists, Durant the rebounds. The advanced metrics will look fairly equal on paper. And indeed, if the stats line up relatively equally, Curry will get the edge with voters.
This is, after all, Curry's team. And unlike the Miami Heat -- which in a basketball sense almost immediately became LeBron's team even though Dwyane Wade remained, in some loyal/technical way, the "face" of the franchise -- the Warriors will always be Curry's team. This is Kobe and the Lakers territory. Jordan and the Bulls. Nobody has, or ever will have, more equity in what Golden State has built than Curry.
Durant, by contrast, was merely added to the deed after the fact, and as such, for him to supplant Curry in the eyes of MVP voters, he would have to go above and beyond. Leave no doubt statistically. Get 32 a night as Curry fades to a second option. And I just don't see that happening.
What I do see happening is the Warriors threatening 70 wins, and Curry, for his sacrifice, production and sheer presence, being viewed as most responsible for that.
Which leaves just one more MVP hurdle to clear ...
A little help from the enemies
As mentioned earlier, this is a pretty wide-open MVP race, largely because there are so many built-in storylines. Russell Westbrook, for instance, is playing without Durant. He was cast aside, left to fend for himself, so people are rooting for him. If he raises this Thunder team anywhere near home-court contention and puts up the numbers we all expect him to put up on his own, the numbers he has already proven he can put up in Durant's absence, he'll get the same benefit of the doubt that Derrick Rose got over LeBron in 2011 -- when Rose, let's be honest, was not the better player, but was seen as having done more with less.
Same deal if James Harden ressurects the Rockets.
Same deal if Chris Paul or Blake Griffin lifts the Clippers to unexpected heights.
It would obviously help Curry if these things didn't happen.
Even LeBron, for maybe the first time in his career, won't be fighting against his own standard of excellence. Fans and voters alike won't be looking to nitpick him to death after all the "Curry is the best player in the world" talk was proven somewhere between premature and outright ignorant after last season's Finals. Voters will be itching to right that wrong. Pay the man his due.
If, for instance, the Cavs decide to take the regular season seriously and somehow lead the league in wins, you can book LeBron for MVP. Case closed. No reason to discuss any further. Even if the Cavs don't lead the league in wins, but they're up there, say 60-plus, and the Warriors don't completely run away from that number, LeBron will get a lot of votes that would've previously gone against him, as he is no longer the one having to live up to an impossible standard.
That, in fact, has become Curry's problem. He has set his own bar so astronomically high that he could hit 375 3-pointers and the Warriors could win 70 games and it would be a REGRESSION. That's crazy, but it's true. The honeymoon is over. Curry has officially entered the "nothing is good enough" zone. From this point forward, we will all, to at least some degree, begin to take his historically absurd numbers for granted, the same way we've done with LeBron for years.
However, this is where Durant coming to Golden State actually helps Curry's MVP case, because now we have a whole new set of variables by which to evaluate him. Think about it: If the roster had remained constant, if no elements had changed, we would only have last season as a barometer, and there is virtually no way Curry, or any other player for that matter, repeats that performance any time soon.
More realistically, Curry will almost certainly score less this season. He will almost certainly make fewer 3-pointers. These "regressions" were probably going to happen anyway, but now, with Durant on board, they will be easier for voters to swallow. They'll be more explainable. The narrative could easily be flipped into one of sacrifice on Curry's part. Here is a guy who had one of one of the greatest individual seasons in history but took a step back in the selfless interest of assimilating a second superstar -- not to mention two other All-Stars.
If that becomes the sentiment, and the Warriors indeed look like the team we expect them to be with Curry running point, as long as he puts up somewhat similar numbers to Durant he'll be in line to win his third straight MVP.
Now, if I were a betting man, I'm not sure I would bet on this to happen. There's a reason only three players in history have ever pulled this feat off. But I can tell you this: Anyone who has ever bet against Stephen Curry, from college recruiters on down the line, has wound up regretting it. If you're standing in line in Vegas to place your MVP bet, I'd remember that.
