Stephen Curry has been posting MVP-caliber numbers all season long. He’s got the highest points-per-game average in his career and is willing the Golden State Warriors into a playoff berth.
Even despite the Warriors’ subpar supporting cast and the fact that he missed several games with a tailbone injury, the Warriors are only 4 games behind the 5th seed in the Western Conference.
That means that, if he had stayed healthy, there’s a strong chance that the Warriors wouldn’t even be in the play-in scenario and would be over the Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers, and Los Angeles Lakers.
However, that’s not enough to convince Kendrick Perkins, as he recently said that he shouldn’t even be in the MVP conversation:
“I’m not taking anything from Steph. Steph has been must-see TV, he has been on another level,” Perkins started. “The goal post continues to move. And when we talk about the MVP, we talk about where’s your team right now. We’ve been looking at the top-ranking teams… The Warriors are sitting at number 8. Everyone in the world says… he don’t have the great support cast and I get that point. But, they’re still sitting at the eighth seed.”
Perkins went on to add that there’s just no way that Curry is a top-3 MVP candidate, not even if he’s the league’s scoring champion, adding that even Chris Paul should be above him right now:
“There’s no way he could be a top-three MVP candidate. I have him as a top-five; I strongly believe he should be in the conversation. But he’s not ahead of Jokic, he’s not ahead of Embiid, he’s not ahead of Giannis, and he’s not ahead of CP3,” the former NBA Champion concluded.
Stephen Curry is averaging a career-high 31.9 points per game to go along with 5.5 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 1.2 steals, and 5.4 three-pointers (also a career-high) on 48/42/91 shooting splits.
People counted out the Warriors as soon as the news of Klay Thompson’s injury broke and were calling for them to blow out the roster when Curry got hurt. His legacy was on the line and he delivered big time, and if those numbers and that context doesn’t make him a top-3 MVP candidate then I don’t know what will.
