For the first two months of the NBA’s regular season, the biggest question surrounding the Golden State Warriors was whether Stephen Curry could ever get back to the heights he reached over the past two seasons, both of which ended in him winning the league’s MVP award and leading the Warriors to the NBA Finals, claiming one of them.
For the past six weeks, the biggest question surrounding the Warriors has been different: How could anyone have doubted him? And, as Curry has gotten back to regularly torching the league over the past several weeks, yet another question seems at least worth considering: Could he somehow, maybe, possibly work his way back into the conversation for a third straight MVP award?
"You know, just know, that Steph is capable of incredible games like tonight, and streaks, stretches – whatever you want to call it," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "He’s in a good groove, and it all makes sense. When you think about it, adding [Kevin Durant] and seven new players to the roster, and Steph’s the point guard, I think he kind of had to settle in and figure it all out.
"He’s obviously much more comfortable now than he was a couple of months back."
That’s apparent to anyone who’s watched the Warriors recently, with Wednesday night’s game against the Charlotte Hornets serving as the latest example. Curry was sensational in Golden State’s 126-111 win – a margin of victory that felt like it was triple that amount – putting up an eye-popping line: 39 points, 14-for-20 from the field and 11-for-15 from 3-point range, to go along with five rebounds, eight assists, three steals and just one turnover in 30 minutes.
But, like he did so many times the past two years, he put up those numbers while also producing memorable moments along the way. There was burying his first four 3-pointers to start the game, going 6-for-8 in the first quarter. There was his ridiculous crossover of Marvin Williams – one so brutal that Williams was left to futilely try to crawl after Curry as he buried yet another 3-pointer in the latter stages of the second quarter.
And then there was the fact that he finished the third quarter just two threes shy of the single-game record he already set earlier this season, but never got off the bench in the final period as the game was already well in hand.
Curry has now gone an astonishing 26-for-42 from long range over his past three games, jumping his season-average from 40.1 to 42.1 percent and even leaving teammates like Durant in awe.
"That’s crazy," Durant said. "He’s shooting threes like other guys shoot twos."
These are the kinds of things Curry was doing, and the kinds of comments Curry was inspiring, on a regular basis over the past two years, as he ran roughshod over the NBA en route to molding the Warriors into the league’s dominant team and himself into the sport’s most popular player.
But that was before Curry injured his knee during last year’s playoffs, and before the Warriors collapsed and blew a three games to one lead in the NBA Finals to keep themselves from capping off what would have been the greatest season in NBA history, and before Durant arrived to share the spotlight. Suddenly, there were questions about whether Curry was even the best player on his own team – let alone the best player in the league.
Those questions certainly lingered over the opening several weeks of the regular season, when Curry seemed content to step aside and make sure Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green all were comfortable with the team’s new alignment. That all changed, though, when Curry scored just 15 points on 11 shots in another collapse against the Cleveland Cavaliers in a loss on Christmas Day.
And, after demanding the ball more in the wake of that game, Curry has looked like himself again. The result has been Golden State – which was already the league’s best team – looking virtually unstoppable ever since.
"I just look to be more aggressive," Curry said. "Mostly, it’s just having a purpose of balancing my aggressiveness to score and also as a point guard on this team, picking and choosing my spots and understanding how the flow of the game is supposed to be with that perspective."
He’s certainly found the right balance. In 16 games since that Christmas Day loss, Curry has been on fire, averaging 27.7 points and 6.9 assists per game while shooting 49.2 percent from the floor and an absurd 46.2 percent from 3-point range on more than 10 attempts per game – all numbers that are in line with his unanimous MVP season from a year ago.
Most impressively, the Warriors are outscoring their opponents by an astronomical 16.6 points per game in those 16 games. To put that in context: the NBA record for point differential for a season is 12.3, set by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1972.
In other words, not bad.
So that brings us back to the original question: Can Curry somehow force his way back into an MVP conversation he seemed destined to finish far away from the leader board? Recent events have at least made the question worth asking.
James Harden remains the likely front-runner, thanks to his combination of statistical prowess and his Houston Rockets residing near the top of the West, but the Rockets have stumbled a bit the past few weeks. Kawhi Leonard has continued to be excellent for the San Antonio Spurs, who have the NBA’s second-best record, but has gotten almost no buzz for the award.
Russell Westbrook is still averaging a triple-double, but the Thunder have lost six of 10 and are now on pace to win about 45 games – far fewer than any recent MVP has ever won. And LeBron James remains arguably the league’s best player, but his Cavaliers have gone 5-7 in their last 12 games and James has recently picked fights with his front office and Charles Barkley. Even Durant, who was talked about as a potential MVP candidate thanks to his terrific all-around play this season, has been completely overshadowed in recent games by the return of Curry’s dominant form.
Curry still has a long, uphill battle to truly get himself back into the MVP conversation, and given the narrative around these Warriors because of the amount of talent on their roster, it’s a long shot to imagine him walking away with a third consecutive MVP trophy.
But the fact that Curry has played well enough to get himself back in the conversation shows how dominant he’s been over the past several weeks. And that dominance has reasserted both the Warriors and Curry in the places they grown accustomed to over the past two years: at the top of the sport, lording over it and having fun while doing so.
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