NBA April Takeaway: The return of 2016 Steph Curry
If you haven’t enjoyed what Steph Curry has been doing this month then you don’t enjoy basketball. I made a preseason bet against the Warriors making the playoffs, and yet I still find myself flipping over to Warriors games whenever they play, hoping I get to see another historic game from him. This guy is so fun that he’s making me root against my own wallet, which is no easy task.
We’ve never really seen Curry go into superhero mode like this. His 2015 and 2016 MVP seasons are the closest we ever got to what he’s doing right now, but that team had the luxury of a complete, talented roster making his life easier. That’s no longer the case.
This Warriors team requires Curry to play like this just to have a chance. In fact, even with Curry playing like 2016 MVP Curry, the Warriors still only ranked as the 19th best offense in the NBA during April. I’m not saying he’s better this year than he was in 2016, but it’s all on him now.
His April usage rate was 35.6 percent, good for the third-highest in the NBA during that span and the highest mark of any month in his career. And he’s somehow managed to parlay that career-high usage with his most efficient month of the season, draining a season-best 6.4 3’s on 13.7 attempts per game (46.6% – ridiculous efficiency at that volume) on his way to shattering the NBA record for made threes in a calendar month.
So spare me with the doubts about Steph’s ability to be “the guy.” At this point, you’re just telling on yourself.