Warriors’ Curry 3rd in MVP vote; Jokic easily wins
Warriors guard Stephen Curry finished third in the 202021 NBA MVP voting, the league announced Tuesday.
With 453 total points, Curry checked in behind Denver center Nikola Jokic (971) and Philadelphia center Joel Embiid (586). Curry received five firstplace votes, 23 secondplace votes, 32 thirdplace votes, 23 fourthplace votes and 13 fifthplace votes.
Those five firstplace votes put him second in that category behind Jokic, who had 91 firstplace votes. Embiid received one firstplace vote.
Though many believed Curry would have a good chance to finish second in the MVP voting, few people thought he’d beat out Jokic. In the 45 years since Kareem AbdulJabbar won the league’s top individual honor despite playing for a sub.500 Lakers team, no MVP has played for a club with a winning percentage worse than .561.
Curry received public support for MVP from everyone from LeBron James to Magic Johnson to Ja Morant, but that couldn’t change the fact that his Warriors finished the regular season with a winning percentage of .542 and missed the playoffs. Given how much voters tend to prioritize winning, Curry needed a historic scoring surge simply to secure a spot in the MVP discussion.
As of midApril, he wasn’t even on many top10 lists for the MVP award. Then Curry powered the Warriors to a 168 stretch over their final 24 games by averaging 36.9 points on 49.1% shooting (43.7% from 3point range).
He finished the season with 32 points per game to edge out Washington guard Bradley Beal (31.3) for the scoring title, no minor accomplishment considering that Curry was averaging 3.5 less points than Beal in midMarch. Curry figures to have more opportunities to win his third career MVP award.
At age 33, he is pushing the limits of his prime and could play at a high level for another several years. It should help Curry that Klay Thompson is expected to return from a torn Achilles tendon early next season.