Stephen Curry is adding more hardware to his already crowded trophy case. The Golden State Warriors superstar has been selected the NBA’s 2023-24 KIA Clutch Player of the Year, the league announced Thursday evening.
Curry is the award’s second recipient, following Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox, who won the trophy in its initial year.
With 45 of the 99 first-place votes, the four-time NBA champion defeated Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozan and Oklahoma City Thunder MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to win the Jerry West trophy, named after the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Lakers legend known as Mr. Clutch in his heyday.
Curry scored 298 points, edging out DeRozan’s 272. SGA rounded out the finalists with 160 points.
Curry proved his clutch gene throughout the season.In the majority of games, the Warriors relied on their superstar point guard.
The Warriors had a dismal season overall, but without Steph Curry’s heroics during the season, they would not have had a chance to compete for a postseason place. When it came to coming through when his team needed him the most, Curry frequently took a big shot to give the Warriors a chance in close games.
This season, the four-time NBA MVP led the league in key clutch metrics — defined as the last five minutes of a game within five points — including points (189), field goal attempts (59), and three-pointers made (32). Curry also shot 49.6 percent from the field and 45.7 percent from long range during crunch circumstances, both of which were higher than his regular season averages.
Curry featured in 43 clutch games for the Warriors, going 23-20. Consider how much worse that record would have been if Steph Curry hadn’t saved the day for the Warriors on most of those occasions.
As evidenced by their record, the Warriors have clearly failed in a number of key games.
Curry’s clutch momentsCurry gave the Warriors with numerous critical moments this season.
Despite missing the playoffs and the way their season ended, Curry gave Warriors fans plenty of thrilling and heart-stopping moments during the season.
Curry has two game-winners this season, one of which came against the Phoenix Suns in February. The most challenging aspect of that shot was needing to pirouette to grab the ball and then going into that deep three-pointer while trailing by two points with 3.3 seconds left in the game.
The other came early in the season, during the In-Season Tournament, when he scored the game-winning layup with 0.2 seconds left to defeat the Thunder.
And, of course, no Warriors fan can forget his crucial dagger three-pointer against the Boston Celtics in December, indicating that even after all these years, he still owns the team he defeated in the 2022 NBA Final.
There are been additional instances in which Curry’s unbelievable heroics caused havoc among Warriors fans. It’s simply terrible that NBA fans won’t be able to witness his brilliance during this year’s playoffs.