Campaigning for NBA awards has become an actual thing.
Take the Charlotte Hornets, who are backing Michael Kidd-Gilchrist for Defensive Player of the Year (he won’t get it). Take the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are publicly supporting Andrew Wiggins’ Rookie of the Year case with custom-made socks.
Take the Houston Rockets and general manager Daryl Morey, who have not shied from trumpeting James Harden’s MVP credentials.
Now take Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who, after weeks of avoiding the subject, finally endorsed Stephen Curry for MVP, albeit a little inadvertently, on the heels of his team’s 116-105 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers Thursday night.
Per ESPN.com’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss:
It took a little while, but Stephen Curry finally cracked Steve Kerr. After chiding Daryl Morey for vocally running James Harden’s MVP campaign, after steadfastly avoiding a similar campaign on Curry’s behalf, Curry’s 45-point performance Thursday forced the words right out of the mouth of Golden State’s coach.
“There’s nothing left to say. Except that he’s the MVP.”
Kerr was asked, “That counts as campaigning?”
A grin spread across the coach’s face. “Yes.” Curry was incendiary enough to melt any pretenses. …
“He was, he was just — I don’t even know how to describe what I watched tonight,” Kerr said before arriving on, “Scintillating. Every move, every shot, just amazing skill. I have never seen a player with this skill set.”
If there was ever a night for Steve Kerr to stray from his previous stance, it was this one. Curry made the MVP statement of MVP statements. He even turned me, someone who has cited Harden as the MVP time and again. Over the course of that game, I went from picking Harden, to being unable to decide between Harden and Curry, to removing Harden—and everyone else–from the discussion entirely.
This is, without question, Curry’s award to lose.
It isn’t just about the 45 points and 10 assists on 73.9 percent shooting. It isn’t about the 19-point, two-assist, perfect-from-the-field fourth quarter that allowed the Warriors to pull away. It’s about Curry, the player, and his value to one of the NBA’s best teams ever—certainly the best team since Michael Jordan’s 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
Thursday night’s tilt was one without meaning for the Warriors. Win or lose, their postseason standing wasn’t impacted in any way. When the Blazers came back to tie the game in the third quarter, when they regained the lead in the fourth, the Warriors could have bowed out in a haze of disinterest. But Stephen Curry went supernova instead, carrying them to a victory that shouldn’t have mattered but, as it pertains to his MVP case, now does.
Only two other players in league history have been this important on a team this good: Michael Jordan and LeBron James. That’s it. One could even argue it’s just Jordan. That’s the type of company Curry is pinning himself to. And, in doing so, he isn’t just contending for the MVP award anymore.
He’s taking it home with him early.
