Last season, the NBA’s MVP award eventually came down to two players. Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry and Houston Rockets guard James Harden. The award would wind up landing in the Bay Area and it would just mark the start of great things to come at the end of the 2014-15 season for the Golden State Warriors. Curry was voted the MVP by the media and all was right with the world.
That was until the first annual NBPA Players Awards took place in Las Vegas in July. James Harden was voted by his fellow NBA players as the most valuable player of the 2014-15 season and that kind of threw a little monkey wrench in the debate between the two players. Hindsight is always 20-20 and here we are in the first week of the 2015-16 season and we’re still debating about who should have won the award.
Now it appears that the voting for the NBPA award had a little controversy behind it also. It was a little closer than most thought.
Following from Carl Steward of the San Jose Mercury News.
Harden did win MVP of sorts at the inaugural NBA Players Awards in July. Curry said he wasn’t all that surprised by it.
“Somebody told me it literally was one vote that was separating us,” he said. “Listen, he had a great year. It’s not like he didn’t play at a high level all year and do what he needed to do for his team. It would have been nice to get that one as well. But at the end of the day, I’ve been blessed to have a nice trophy at my house and now a ring, and I have my team. I’m going to enjoy what I was able to accomplish and not really focus on what didn’t happen.”
Well, Stephen Curry is the NBA MVP and if he goes to the Hall of Fame, the voters won’t hold their votes because Curry didn’t win the NBPA MVP award. It would’ve been a nice award for Curry to add to his collection and put on his shelf. I think the fact that fellow NBA players voted on the award meant something more to James Harden. It kind of vindicated Harden and made him feel like he didn’t completely miss out on winning some sort of award.
