Stephen Curry is the first player in NBA history to be a unanimous selection for NBA MVP. Let that sink in for a second. All-time greats such as Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and even Michael Jordan, all failed to convince every voter that they were the best in any given season. Even in their greatest seasons, nearly everyone had at least a few holdout haters to keep them from standing alone on the mountaintop. Not anymore.
Curry shattered the single-season three-point record. He also led the league in points and steals. The icing on the cake was guiding the Warriors to the best record in NBA history at 73-9. Curry’s season was so amazing that it forced even the most cynical sportswriters to realize that a vote for anybody else would sink their credibility like a 25-footer from the Chef himself.
A few delusional naysaysers still exist at barbershops, water coolers and internet forums. They claim LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard or Russell Westbrook deserved the honors. They repeat hollow claims of how Curry is only rewriting the record books because referees no longer allow hand-checking and physical contact. While the game and its rules have certainly changed over the years, it doesn’t explain why Curry is far beyond everyone else in terms of shooting.
When most people think of great three-point shooters, names like Larry Bird, Reggie Miller and Ray Allen come to mind. Let’s examine how Curry compares to these long-range legends.
Considered one of the most lethal shooters in history, Bird led the league in three-pointers two seasons. He drained 82 triples in the 1985-86 season and 90 the following season. What about the guys he beat out? In ’86, Craig Hodges finished second with 73 three-pointers made. In ’87, Michael Cooper finished just one trey behind. Bird’s best shooting season was actually the 1987-88 season, when he tallied 98 threes. However, he finished fourth behind Danny Ainge (148), Michael Adams (139) and Dale Ellis (107).
Reggie Miller led the league in three-pointers on two occassions. In 1992-93, he tied Dan Majerle with 167 makes. In 1996-97, he knocked down 229 threes. That year Mookie Blaylock (221), Glen Rice (207), Mitch Richmond (204) and Tim Hardaway (203 were all within striking range of Miller.
Ray Allen set the pre-Curry record with 269 shots made in the 2005-06 season. Allen’s closest competitor was Gilbert Arenas with 199, meaning Jesus Shuttlesworth outpaced the competition by 70 shots. That’s an impressive gap until you look at what Curry has done.
This season Curry knocked down 402 threes during the regular-season. His teammate, Klay Thompson finished second with 276 (more than anybody in history besides Curry). The difference between first- and second-place is an astounding 126 shots made. Go beyond Thompson and James Harden sits third at 236 three-pointers made. That’s a difference of 166 shots between first- and third-place.
Want to talk percentages? Of the aforementioned league leaders, only Bird led the league in three-pointers and finished in the top-five three-point shooting percentage in the same season (’86). Curry had led the league in three-pointers made for four consecutive seasons and finished in the top-five percentage-wise, three of those years, including a second-place finish this year (.454).
Obviously, eras have an impact on the amount of shots taken and made. There’s no way Arenas was twice the shooter that Bird was during his prime. However, in no other era has a sharpshooter destroyed the competition by such an astronomical margin. Thompson and Harden are all-star players playing with the same rules as Curry. Why aren’t they, nor anyone else in the league, putting up the same insane numbers if it’s just about the lack of physicality?
James, Leonard and Westbrook each had fine seasons, but none put up legendary numbers like SC30. Furthermore, Curry should have silenced any chatter Monday night by dropping 40 points off the bench, including a record 17 in the fourth quarter, in his first game back from a knee injury. Curry’s overtime outburst drained the life out of Microsoft mogul Paul Allen’s face as if his PC crashed before he saved that 40-page document due at 8 a.m. Don’t fret Mr. Allen, the unanimous MVP and his buddies will reset your season shortly and everything should be back to normal around October.
Khan pays the price
For the past few years, Amir Khan chased around the big names in boxing in hopes of landing a lucrative payday. Cinderella finally got invited to the ball, but instead of walking away with a glass slipper, his glass jaw was shattered by Canelo Alvarez. I hate to say I told you so, but it was obvious that Khan bit off more than he could chew in agreeing to fight the WBC Middleweight Champion of the World. Now, who knows when Khan will chew again? Alvarez’s sixth-round knockout was explosive and scary. Khan crashed to the mat and lay seemingly lifeless on his back after a monster right hand from Alvarez.
Khan was ahead on all scorecards at the time, but there was no chance he was ever going to survive 12-rounds against his bigger, stronger opponent. The benefit of Alvarez’s meaningless destruction of Khan is that his confidence is likely at an all-time high as he has 15 days to decide whether he will face IBF and WBA champion (and WBC interim champion) Gennady Golovkin in a unification bout. Golovkin is on a path to capture the lineal middleweight championship and Alvarez is standing in his way. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to see whether Alvarez decides to man up and throw down with GGG.
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