Curry Breaks Another NBA 3-point Record (or two)
There would be little point in having a conversation about NBA award predictions without stating the obvious. Stephen Curry would seem to have a lock on the league’s MVP honors, successfully defending his title as the best player in the league. If you find any sportsbooks with NBA MVP odds posted on the boards, it might be the surest bet of the year, even at fifty cents on the dollar. That might sound like a crazy person going a little too far with their NBA award predictions, but the Curry legend keeps growing and the stats and records keep stacking up.
As if he need another feather in his MVP cap, Curry just broke another NBA record, this time for most consecutive games with at least one 3-pointer. On Wednesday (Feb 25) against the Miami Heat, he tied Kyle Korver’s record with a 3-pointer for the 127th game in a row. When he hit the floor the following night against the Orlando Magic, it was just a matter of time before the record would fall. In fact, the time came early in the first quarter when he drilled a 3-pointer and put the issue to rest quickly.
Even considering it was a night he broke a 3-point record, it might not have been Curry’s biggest achievement of the evening. On a night when he scored 51 points to lead the Golden State Warriors to a 130-114 over the Magic, he accomplished a feat that has never been done before. He reached the 51-point plateau with only one free throw. That’s correct. He was 20-27 from the field, including 10-15 from beyond the arc, and 1-1 from the charity stripe. It was actually the first in his career that he had 20 field goals in a single game. For what it’s worth, he also broke the record for most career games with at least ten 3-pointers, which he accomplished for the fourth time.
Therein lies the mystique of Stephen Curry. He does things that no one else has ever dared to imagine. There have been many great NBA players take the court and do amazing things. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game. Kobe Bryant once scored 81 points in the modern era. Even Curry’s teammate, Klay Thompson, set a record last season for most points in a quarter with 37. The list of great players who did great things on the court also includes Oscar Robertson (averaged a triple-double over an entire season), Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and Jerry West.
And then there’s Curry. At 6’3″ and 190 lbs., it’s hard to imagine him dominating games the way he does night after night. Coaches are instructing their guards to move out 35 ft and guard him like he’s in the lane, driving for a layup. Of course, it becomes an exercise in futility when Curry pulls up and hits a 37-foot 3-pointer with the same regularity that Jabbar used to hit 15-foot sky-hooks. In the Wednesday night game against the heat, he pulled up from 42 feet and drilled another 3-pointer. It’s been done before, but not often in the middle of a quarter.
The fact is Stephen Curry is a true phenom. Across the league, they have tried everything imaginable to stop him, but to no avail. The result is the Golden State Warriors are sitting with a 52-5 record, well on the way to breaking the league record of 72 wins in a season set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. If you can find an online sportsbook brave enough to post a line on NBA MVP odds, well, you know what to do and who to bet.