Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors was the best player on basketball’s best team. Yet he might not have been deserving of the most valuable player award he easily won. The key is the phrase “most valuable.”
In most of the major sports, the M.V.P. has morphed into a “best player” trophy, but if the original intent to honor the player most valuable to his team is kept, there is a case to be made that Curry should have finished behind a few other players.
Using Basketball-Reference’s Win Share statistic, which tries to determine how many wins a single player contributed to his team, Curry was worth 15.