Steph Curry wouldn't have made it to the stage Tuesday if he were complacent. He might not have even managed to meet his mom's expectations.
Curry, in his acceptance speech as the first unanimous MVP in NBA history, fell back on that otherworldly drive in his attempts to explain how, exactly, in less than six months, he went from a deserving winner to the author of one of the greatest seasons in the history of professional sports.
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It's as good an explanation as any, and it's the one the man himself and everyone else who spoke Tuesday gave: Curry works harder than anyone.
"For us, and for me especially, no matter how great people tell you you are, or how lucky or inadequate critics say you are, whatever drives you inside, wherever you find that will to keep going — it's about not being complacent and always trying to get better, no matter how hard that mission might be," he said.
For him, that didn't just start with improving on an MVP season and an NBA title, though he seems to have managed both. It was about going from a guy who his own mother — rightfully — had questions about nine years ago.
Working for the Suns at the time, Warriors coach Steve Kerr went to see Curry play as a sophomore when Davidson played UCLA. Good as Curry was, Kerr noted there had to be questions about his size ("6-1, 145 pounds") and durability in the NBA.
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Kerry ran into Dell and Sonya Curry after the game, and Sonya had the same question: Can Steph make it in the NBA?
"Nine years later, you're the unanimous MVP of the league, which has never been done before. How did that happen in nine years? Your own mom didn’t know you’d make it in the league, and now you’ve got a banner behind us and two of these trophies. This is incredibly improbable. But there's a reason it happened," Kerr said.
"Winning the MVP last year wasn't enough. You came back this year dramatically better. That's amazing. How does that happen? It has to be something inside."
Warriors development coach Steve Nash, one of the few people who also managed back-to-back MVPs, put it in even more striking terms.
"When we look at our league and our game, you can see over a 10-, maybe 20-year period how the game has evolved and changed. I’ve never seen it evolve in six months," Nash said.
So — see you again in November, after another six-month evolution? Is that possible? It almost doesn't seem so, but neither did the last one.
"I want to be remembered as somebody who worked hard," Curry said, "who got the most out of my potential, who pushed the envelope."