For as illustrious of a career as Steph Curry has had, an NBA Finals MVP honor has eluded him.
And despite his impressive career resume – which includes dozens of honors from All-Star appearances to All-NBA teams – he continues to face criticism. Perhaps it’s fair to some degree if you squint, but it’s obviously indisputable that Curry has had a profound impact on the Warriors’ run of success.
It’s for that reason that Warriors general manager Bob Myers was fired up Tuesday morning during an appearance on 95.7 The Game’s “The Morning Roast.” Presented with Curry’s playoff stats and the fact that he’s one of three players ever to average 25-5-5 on 55 true shooting percentage in the finals – Michael Jordan and LeBron James being the others – Myers launched into an emphatic defense of his star.
“It’s so sad we have to defend him,” Myers said. “He’s a made man. Forget about this final, it’s already been done. He’s already done it, he’s already proven it. I don’t know what he has to continue to prove. That stat, I heard that, I read that, it’s tremendous, but why is that eye-opening? Why can’t that just be ‘Oh yeah, he is as good as those guys.’ It’s almost like ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t know Steph averaged those kinds of numbers.’ Well what are you watching? What are you looking at? This is his sixth finals in eight years, have we not watched him? Have we not watched him over the regular season?
“I don’t know if it’s envy, I don’t know what it is about him that causes people to fail to recognize what he’s doing out there or reluctantly praise him. By the way, one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet in your life. He’s a guy you should be rooting for, it’s almost like you should be heaping praise on him. What an unbelievable face of the NBA. It’s almost like, why do we tear down him? He’s humble, watch how he celebrates his teammates. I know, I see him every day, I’ve seen him for 10 years.
“The guy is what you see – there’s no other version of Curry that’s a bad guy and behind the scenes is saying I should have been finals MVP. Never once, ever has he ever said to me or anybody that I’ve heard ‘Oh that (Andre) Iguodala finals, that should have been mine.’ He never once when he signed his contract, his first contract when everyone said he got underpaid, never joking, never serious ever came to me in that contract and said ‘Hey man, you guys got over on me. Wait until my next deal.’ The guy is an unbelievable human being, why aren’t we just celebrating him?”
We can debate all we want about if he should’ve won a finals MVP over Iguodala or Kevin Durant, but the reality is he’s an all-time great on each stage, and he doesn’t need that honor to validate it.
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