Zaza believes Steph would be MVP if Warriors won more games originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
Steph Curry did all he could to win his third NBA MVP award this season. He came up short, though, just as the Warriors did.
Curry’s former Warriors teammate Zaza Pachulia, who now works as a basketball operations consultant for Golden State, believes the Dubs’ record is the sole reason Steph didn’t take home the hardware.
“This shows how much winning matters, right? I’m pretty sure if we would have made top four, top five, he would have definitely been MVP,” Pachulia said Tuesday morning on KNBR’s “Murph & Mac” show. “Just the fact the way the season ended unfortunately … I guess that was the biggest factor in my opinion.”
Curry finished third in MVP voting this season, behind Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers. He did, however, earn the second-most first-place votes. Curry also was named First Team All-NBA for the fourth time in his career.
There’s no doubt Curry put up the stats of a MVP. He led the league with 32.0 points per game, which is more than his unanimous MVP season.
But the Warriors finished ninth in the Western Conference after losing both their play-in tournament games.
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Jokic’s Nuggets finished with the third-best record in the West, and Embiid’s Sixers earned the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James have won three or more MVPs. If anything, Curry proves he has plenty left to become the eighth player to join the exclusive club.