Curry voted NBA’s top clutch player
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry was announced Thursday as the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year.
Curry was presented with the award on TNT as part of the network’s coverage of the playoffs, topping Chicago Bulls guard DeMar DeRozan and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in voting conducted by a panel of national NBA reporters and broadcasters.
The award was inaugurated before the 2022-23 season, honoring the player who “best comes through for his teammates in the clutch” with the Jerry West Trophy, named for the famed Los Angeles Lakers guard.
Clutch is defined as the final five minutes of games played within five-point margins.
Curry, a two-time league MVP and 10-time All-Star, received 45 of 99 possible first-place votes (five points), adding 18 secondplace votes (three points) and 19 third-place votes (one point) for a total of 298 points. DeRozan had 34
first-place votes and 272 points while Gilgeous-Alexander had 11 first-place votes and 160 points.
Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox won the award last year.
“You’ve got to be able to deal with failure,” Curry told TNT’s Ernie Johnson via videoconference regarding the key to performing
in the clutch. “You have to be OK with the shot that you miss and have, like, a short memory with it.”
Curry led the NBA this season with 189 points in 143 clutch minutes, shooting 49.6% from the field, 45.7% from 3-point range and 95.1% from the freethrow line. His 32 3-pointers
in clutch situations were 19 more than the second-place finisher (Buddy Hield, Philadelphia 76ers) as Curry buoyed Golden State’s fourth-quarter offense.
Additionally, the 36year-old made four goahead shots in the final 10 seconds, helping the Warriors — who struggled in fourth quarters — win his clutch minutes by 21 points.
DeRozan scored 182 points in 192 clutch minutes while shooting 48.7% from the field. He led the NBA with 65 clutch free throws, and the Bulls were plus-94 in his clutch minutes.
Gilgeous-Alexander played 108 clutch minutes, scoring 112 points on 58.1% shooting. The Thunder in those minutes were plus-68.
The Warriors (46-36) missed the playoffs after losing last week to the Sacramento Kings in the first portion of the Western Conference play-in tournament.
Curry said he’s watching the playoffs as “just a fan watching how it plays out” while studying the top teams around league.
“I’m taking notes, doing a little scouting, just on the feels of how much I miss that environment, that atmosphere. I don’t want our absence to be another year next year,” Curry told Shaquille O’Neal, a fellow fourtime NBA champion.
Curry told TNT’s Kenny Smith that he “knows there are going to be some tweaks” to Golden State’s roster this offseason.
Said Curry: “We know when you lose, you have to look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘What can we do get better? What holes can we fill?’ And thankfully we have some time to figure that out. So a lot of conversations with upstairs, with Coach (Steve) Kerr to figure out how to get back to that level that we expect.”