Who will win the MVP if the Golden State Warriors win the 2016 Larry O'Brien trophy? No matter how well or how bad Stephen Curry is playing in the finals, he will not allow himself to get sucked into being selfish and forgetting what got him there in the first place.
After shooting 8-21 and going 5/14 from 3-point land in Game 5 Monday night, Curry has had an 8 point drop off from his season average, and it’s raising some to question whether or not his unanimous MVP selection was legitimate.
Along with the historical season the Warriors just accomplished going 73-9 during the season, and Curry finishing in the hailed 50/40/90 group, the expectations for the NBA Finals facing off against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are high.
Curry’s MVP status and leadership is being criticized, but he has much to say regarding the latest rounds of doubters. When asked about his critics, Curry responded to reporters:
“I don’t really worry about what people say. I mean, there’s kind of an historical kind of expectation of the all-time greats in this league that have had great Finals moments and had these kind of numbers and these kind of numbers. None of them played for this team and understood how I try to help my team every single night.”
“So, yeah, I want to honestly play better and more consistent, but the situation is right now we’re one game away from winning a second championship, and I personally have 48 minutes to do what I need to do to help my team win. So right now it could kind of get lost in that. But at the end of the day if I’m sitting here tomorrow night with another trophy and celebrating with my teammates, we can talk all day.”
While Curry is not having the worst finals in the history of the NBA, his play seems more average for his own standards. That isn’t to say 22 points per game is average, but the expectation after such a grand season left nothing but optimism for a post season historical run, and while it is in the process of happening, Curry won’t allow his lack of matching his own regular season production to get in the way.
“Everybody leads in a different way, and I don’t want to be a prisoner of the moment and say Game 5 was a direct reflection of who we are as a team and who I am as an individual, as a player, as a leader. I was out there doing what I was trying to do to help our team win and it didn’t work. So that happens in sports. It happens in our game, and nothing’s going to stop me from coming back and doing what I do to help lead my team in Game 6. So I’m comfortable with that.”
One more game, and the headlines will shift to talks of history being made, Finals MVP, or no Finals MVP.
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