Report: Stephen Curry to repeat as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player
It isn’t official yet, James Harden might still be in with a chance, but a report on Monday aligned with what we’ve assumed since the last few weeks of December: Stephen Curry will repeat as the NBA’s MVP.
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The league has yet to announce the award’s winner or the votes, but here is what ESPN’s Marc Stein tweeted on Monday morning:
USA Today also confirmed Curry’s honor.
The Warriors guard, currently recovering from a sprained right MCL suffered during the first round of the playoffs, won the award in 2014-15 as well. He averaged a league-leading 30.1 points on 50.1 percent shooting, a percentage almost unheard of in a modern era that emphasizes long range shooting.
Curry, it’s safe to say, also emphasizes long range shooting. He once again broke his own record for three-pointers in a year, making 402 of them while shooting at an incredible 45 percent clip. Teams lined up to attempt to take his daggers from beyond away from the seventh-year guard, and yet he was still able to squeeze 11 per game off, making five on average.
Stephen also led the NBA in making 90.8 percent of his free throws, he led the league in steals at 2.1 per game, and his ungodly True Shooting Percentage of nearly 67 percent will hopefully send you into a wormhole that will reveal all the other advanced metrics that credit this 6-3 waterbug for acting as the NBA’s best player by a wide margin in 2015-16.
He also was the leading force on a team that broke the NBA’s all time record for wins in a regular season, with 73. He is also, by unquantifiable-yet-mostly-agreed-upon measures, the league’s most entertaining player. He is the complete and total package and, we’re assuming, the first unanimously voted-upon MVP in league history.
Those votes have yet to be released by the league, and we’re hoping no media member lets us down in our assumption. The building blocks, inspiration and influences are obvious, but there has never been a player like Stephen Curry.
All we can ask is that he return to the court shortly, and in good health. Monday night’s Game 4 is a no-go, but an award ceremony in Oakland in Game 5 on Wednesday, followed by an active appearance from the NBA’s best player, would seem fitting.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
