Andre Iguodala started every game of every season for the first ten years of his career, and he only has one All Star appearance and 2 All Defensive Team honors to show for it. Now, in his first season coming off of the bench, Andre has an accomplishment that tops all of the others, the Bill Russell 2015 NBA Finals MVP.
Andre was completely accepting of his role to come off the bench this season, and it paid off for him and his team. They won the NBA Finals in 6 games, and he had an exceptional year and was honored with the Finals MVP for his outstanding play during the Finals. His coach, Steve Kerr, was very proud of how he played, and CBS Sports reports him talking about the sacrifices Andre made for his team, saying,
“An All-Star, an Olympian saying, ‘OK, I’ll come off the bench’ set the tone for everything we were able to accomplish.”
One teammate of Iguodala that had very high praise for him is Draymond Green. He called him ‘that guy,’ and says that he ‘saved the season for us.’
Draymond: “Andre, Shaun, Barbosa, D-Lee, Bogut are super-vets. And Andre is that guy that we all look too when everything’s going bad.”
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) June 17, 2015
Draymond on Andre: “He saved the season for us.”
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) June 17, 2015
Iguodala was not likely to win the MVP to start the series, and the odds for him to win were as high as 125-1. Iguodala beat the odds, and he came out ahead of LeBron James, as he received 7 of 11 votes to win. LeBron was the only other player to receive votes, and he had 4 of them. I can imagine someone that bet money on him to win the MVP is very excited that they made that bet.
Iguodala finished with the third-lowest scoring average of any Finals MVP, and he was the first Finals MVP to win the award without starting a game all season. Iguodala averaged 16.3 PPG, 5.8 RPG, four APG, and 1.3 SPG over the series. The Warriors were also much better with Andre on the floor, and they averaged 26 points per possession higher than they did when he was off of the court.
While Andre Iguodala played great offensively for the Warriors, he played exceptional defense against LeBron James. LeBron may have averaged a lot of points during the series, but he did not shoot a high percentage at all, and that is due to some great defense by Andre Iguodala. LeBron shot 39.8% during the series, and he never had a night where he shot over 50%, and the poor shooting from LeBron is due to Andre Iguodala who played great as the primary defender of LeBron.
Andre Iguodala played phenomenal basketball the entire series, and he made many people happy. One person that Andre always wants to make happy is his son, Andre Iguodala Jr., and he definitely did that with the way he played. Andre Jr. said after the game that his dad was ‘getting buckets all day’ as he held onto his dads MVP Trophy.
Lil @andre on dad’s MVP performance! #LeanInTogetherpic.twitter.com/NbRCkWOlGl
— NBA (@NBA) June 17, 2015
Congratulations to Andre Iguodala for his great achievement, and to his team, the Golden State Warriors, for winning their 4th NBA Championship!
