By Andrew Lynch
foxsports.com
Outside of one especially compelling performance in Game 4, Stephen Curry just completed the worst Finals you'll ever see from a reigning MVP.
Actually, check that. There's always a chance that a future MVP will play even worse than Curry did in the 2016 Finals. But at this moment, Curry doesn't really have any peers. Blame him, credit the Cleveland Cavaliers, or do a little bit of both. But no matter how you slice it, Curry's unanimous MVP season was undoubtedly tarnished by an absolutely awful stretch on the biggest stage.
These are relative terms, of course. An "awful" series from an MVP is still better than what most players could hope to accomplish in The Finals. Yet we expect more of the game's biggest stars; that's why they're MVPs. And in 2016, Curry came up well short of playing like the most valuable player in the league. Don't take our word for it, though; let the numbers wash over you.
(Disclaimer: Because not all box score stats are created equal, it can be tough to draw a one-to-one comparison from one performance to the next. For the purposes of this ranking, we went back and pored over video, game recaps and columns written in the wake of each Finals series, combined with our own recollections of how each MVP played.)
22.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.7 blocks, 4.3 turnovers per game; 40.3 FG%
Of the 22 times a player appeared in The Finals the same year he won the MVP, Curry had the worst scoring average (more than a point lower than Malone in 1997), eighth-lowest assists per game, second-worst steals per game, second-worst turnovers per game (behind his 2015 performance), and worst field goal percentage.
All of those numbers can be explained away if you're committed to defending Curry. It's not his job to get steals. He gave away a ton of turnovers because the Cavs were trapping him and he was forcing the issue against an aggressive defense. Ditto the scoring problems; The Cavs weren't going to let Curry beat them. That abysmal field goal percentage? Curry mostly shot 3s, which he made at a 40 percent clip. If anything, that shows just how many problems there are with field goal percentage as a baseline stat.
Yet to some extent, those are all excuses. If Curry is the unanimous MVP, then he has to come up bigger than he did in this series -- or last year, for that matter. Curry and the Warriors will be back in The Finals soon, in all likelihood. And the MVP will be better than he was before. But in 2016, as in 2015, Curry disappeared on the biggest stage like no other MVP before him.
Topic: Steph Curry had the worst Finals performance by an MVP in NBA history (Read 1417 times)