Draymond Green pleads his case that Stephen Curry should be NBA MVP by using Russell Westbrook as an example.
Draymond Green believes his Golden State Warriors teammate Stephen Curry should be named NBA MVP this season, citing what Russell Westbrook did for the 2016-17 Oklahoma City Thunder as all the reason it should be him.
“If I’m not mistaken, Russell Westbrook won MVP [in 2016-17] and they were the seventh or eighth seed,” said Green to The Athletic’s Sam Amick. “There’s no rule that says you can’t be an eighth seed and win the MVP because Russ has done it.”
“I had no problem with him winning the MVP because I actually thought he f*****g deserved it. That OKC team he was on was horses**t. Complete horses**t. And he carried that team to the playoffs while going out and averaging a triple double, completely destroying every team that he played against.”
“I thought he deserved to be the MVP. Why? Because he was so valuable to that team that he got that team to the playoffs while averaging a triple double. You’re damn right he deserved to be the MVP.”
Draymond Green believes Steph Curry should be this year’s NBA MVP
While Curry has been otherworldly this year, there are two reasons why Westbrook won NBA MVP that year. One, he averaged a triple-double that season. No player had done that since Oscar Robertson was starring for the then-Cincinnati Royals in the 1960s. And two, NBA MVP is a narrative-driven award. That season came on the heels of Kevin Durant leaving Oklahoma City.
If Green called the 2016-17 Thunder essentially hot horse mess, what does that say about the 2020-21 Warriors? That Thunder team finished as the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference that year. Golden State will take part in the play-in tournament either as the eight or ninth-placed team, depending on how Sunday’s regular-season finale with the Memphis Grizzlies shakes out.
Even Curry has been electrifying this season, he is not going to win his third NBA MVP this year.