Stephen Curry added yet another NBA honor to his already impressive resume.
The four-time champion and two-time league MVP is the NBA's top honoree for the 2023-24 season, ahead of Chicago Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He was named Clutch Player of the Year, TNT analyst Charles Barkley announced Thursday. .
Curry received 45 of 99 first-place votes, defeating DeRozan by a total of 26 points.
Last season, the NBA introduced the Clutch Player of the Year Award, given to the player who “contributes the most to his teammates in the clutch.” The winner of the award — Kings point guard De'Aaron Fox was the first recipient last year — will receive the Jerry West Trophy. It is named after the Los Angeles Lakers legend who earned the nickname “Mr. Clutch” for his lights-out shots at games. A close match is over.
After the announcement, Curry appeared on TNT's “NBA Tipoff” pregame show and was asked about the meaning of accepting the award named after West, who made the Warriors a perennial championship contender.
“His basketball career on the floor speaks for itself,” Curry told Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal. “I think he was just recently inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame for a third time for a third different reason, so his resume is there, but when you actually look at him, how important basketball is to him and how much You'll see how competitive he is.'' It's about how much he wants to win, no matter what seat he's sitting in. It affected our organization at a time when we were trying to establish ourselves as a championship contender, so any time Jerry West says something, you're going to do it. listen. “
In 142.9 minutes of crunch time (periods in which the score was within five points with five minutes or less remaining), Curry made 32 3-pointers and scored a league-leading 189 points. The 36-year-old also shot 49.6 percent from the field in clutch time, and his hot hands produced multiple winners in 2023-24.
Early in his NBA career, Curry had the perception that he wasn't a clutch player, but this honor dispels that notion.
“You have to be able to deal with failure,” Curry told the TNT Crew when asked what makes him so successful in clutch moments. “…You have to take missed shots in stride, and you have a poor memory of them. You don't know if anything went right, other than knowing how much time you spent in the game. And , time will come with its due reward.'' Confidence — “OK, I'm ready to take whatever shot you encounter in any moment.''
“Everybody remembers the highlights and stuff, but there's a lot of shots that leave the court and leave the court. You think, 'Yeah, I should have taken that, I should have made that,' but you're like, 'Yeah, I should've taken that, I should've made that,' but you're like, 'Yeah, I should've taken that, I should've made that.' Then you have to have a little bit of amnesia built in, and that's the only way you can keep coming back to those moments with the same kind of confidence.”
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