Getty Steph Curry celebrates a playoff win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Steph Curry believes he’s playing like a league MVP this season, and Steve Kerr shares the assessment.
The Golden State Warriors coach opened up about his star player’s MVP aspirations, which come amid one of the hottest stretches and most effective offensive seasons of his career. Curry has turned in numbers close to his unanimous MVP season while leading an injury-plagued team to the edge of playoff contention, which Kerr said made his campaign that much more impressive.
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Curry Believes He’s MVP
If it were up to Curry, he would be taking home the league MVP hardware for what would be the third time in his career. During an appearance on “The Rex Chapman Show,” Curry was asked if he believes he should get the award and had a blunt answer.
“I mean, I gotta be. I gotta be,” Curry said. “I probably won’t get it, but whatever.”
Asked for his thoughts on whether he shared the assessment Curry should get the MVP award again, Kerr had an even shorter reply.
“Yes,” Kerr said after Friday’s win over the Denver Nuggets, via NBC Sports Bay Area.
There are other prominent NBA voices who agree with Curry. During a win on the road this week over the Philadelphia 76ers in which Curry scored 49 points and made 10 three-pointers, fans serenaded the Warriors star with chants of “MVP, MVP.”
MVP chants for Steph in Philly.
Different.
The performance also caught the eye of Magic Johnson, who took to Twitter to share the thought that Curry was having an MVP season.
Kerr Explains Difference This Season
Kerr was a bit more verbose when speaking to reporters before Friday’s game. Kerr compared Curry’s current season to the unanimous MVP campaign in 2015-16, noting how he had one of the best supporting casts in league history. While Curry’s stats are strikingly similar this season, Kerr said the team’s circumstances are very different.
“The main difference between now and then, is we had a championship team that year, we were defending champs, we were in the midst of winning 73 games, so his unanimous season came amongst a group of players who were really performing at a high level, a team that was performing at an incredibly high level,” Kerr said, via NBC Sports Bay Area.
Doc Rivers on Steph Curry: “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like the run he’s on. I guarantee you there’s no one that has scored in the way he has.”
This month, he is averaging 40.8 points, 7.2 threes, 6.2 boards, 4.4 assists, 54.9 FG%, 50.3 3PT%.
The Warriors coach went on to say that he believes Curry’s performance is even more impressive given the difficult circumstances this year and his advanced age. Curry was 28 when he turned in the unanimous MVP season and is 33 now, but playing some of the best basketball of his career. He is also leading a team with far less talent than five seasons ago, with fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson sidelined for the season.
“He just keeps getting better and obviously this last stretch that he’s had, he’s never had a stretch quite like this as good as he has been,” Kerr said.
But there could still be some work for Curry to finish this season as the league’s best. Even after his torrid stretch that included 11 straight games with 30 or more points, he was ranked No. 5 on the Kia MVP Ladder from NBA.com behind Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and Nikola Jokic.
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