Gary Payton explains why Steph Curry shouldn't have been NBA's first unanimous MVP
Gary Payton has played with and against some of the NBA's very best. And according to the one-time champion, one of those guys probably should have made history before Stephen Curry.
Payton recently joined Sports Illustrated to talk about the Golden State Warriors, and he offered a perfectly reasonable perspective: while Curry absolutely earned his honor as the first unanimous MVP, it's something that should have happened a lot sooner.
“It’s again about era. It’s about who’s voting and what’s going on. I really don’t think so. I can name a couple guys: Michael Jordan, who had -- they won 72 games. … Why wouldn’t he be a unanimous decision? Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell; I can name a lot of guys that could have been unanimous. But that is just what happened. You know? It happened like that. I think all of those guys were unanimous decisions, too. You know what I’m saying? It just happened in an era that it went his way. He was the first one to do it. Like I said, I commend him again and what he’s accomplished, but you gotta think about who was voting for Michael Jordan, and Wilt Chamberlain, and Kareem and all of them during their time, why in the heck would they not give all their votes to them guys at that time when they’re doing it?”
Curry became the 11th player to win consecutive MVP awards and the first in Warriors franchise history. He broke his own record for 3-pointers in a season (402) and led Golden State to an NBA-record 73 wins in the regular season. Shaquille O'Neal (2000) and LeBron James (2013) previously fell one vote shy of being named unanimous MVPs. Jordan received all but four votes for the 1995-96 season, while Chamberlain and Russell traditionally split much of the vote between the two of them. Despite his dominance of the game, Abdul-Jabbar's best showing in an MVP race came in 1971, when he earned 133 of 153 possible votes.
Payton's comments are a refreshing take from a basketball Hall of Famer, given how many have disrespected Curry by saying he could never play back in their day. Payton's not trying to take anything away from the Warriors point guard; instead, he's singing the praises of the legends of the past.
It's a message we wish he would share with the likes of Oscar Robertson, who earlier this year called Buddy Hield a better all-around player than Curry. No, really.
