Stephen Curry has been a walking bucket throughout this entire NBA season. The Golden State Warriors star leads the league in scoring and has seemingly forgotten how to miss three-pointers all of a sudden.
Curry's absolutely scorching run for the Warriors is made more impressive by the fact that he's doing this at age 32 during his twelfth NBA season. In fact, he just passed Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant for the second most 30-point outings by a player in their 12th season or beyond. However, he's going to end up getting robbed for Michael Jordan's all-time record for two different reasons beyond his own control.
Most 30-point games by a player in their 12th season or later:
44 — Michael Jordan (1996-17)
37 — Steph Curry (2020-21)
36 — Kobe Bryant (2007-08) pic.twitter.com/6X4RLR3ilw— StatMuse (@statmuse) May 11, 2021
The (1) first reason is the fact that this is a COVID-19 shortened season. Under normal circumstances, the Warriors superstar would still have 13 games to go, needing just seven 30-point games to tie MJ and eight to stand alone in NBA history. However, given that there are only 72 games this year, Curry ends up getting shortchanged.
The (2) second reason makes it even more bonkers that Stephen Curry passed Kobe Bryant at all and even came close to threatening Michael Jordan's record. Both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played in all 82 games during their respective 12th NBA seasons. Beyond just the fact that the Warriors star faced an uphill battle with the shortened season, he also has missed eight other games due to injury.
That means that Stephen Curry posted his herculean effort to break the record with a stunning 18 game disadvantage against both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. And although Jordan was already 33 during his season, Kobe Bryant was in his absolute prime during his 12th season in 2007-2008 when he was just 29. In fact, that was Kobe Bryant's MVP season, giving him a huge edge in terms of mileage at that point as a player who came out of high school.
Bottom line is that we're watching an all-time season from one of the NBA's greatest players in Stephen Curry. This has truly been a special year that Warriors fans won't be forgetting anytime soon.