Stephen Curry is the MVP, and this one stat proves it

Statisticians love to crunch numbers, coming up with more and more ways of measuring players’ value to their teams. But there’s one that stands out in determining the NBA’s Most Valuable Player: 24.

That’s how many more games the Golden State Warriors won this year with Stephen Curry than they did last season without him.

They were that much better even though he didn’t have Klay Thompson.

Even though he didn’t have last year’s No. 2 draft pick, James Wiseman for the last part of the season, which is when Curry really caught fire.

Even though the guy who was supposed to fill in for Thompson, Kelly Oubre, missed the last part of the season, too. Which is when, to reiterate, Curry really caught fire.

Not that he was slacking before. He was averaging something like 29 points a game and wound up averaging 32. That was the best in the league, and it’s 32 points a game the Warriors didn’t have last year when they won just 15 times.

With Curry this year, they won 39.

That’s where you get the 24. (Granted, they played seven fewer games this season, but at the pace they were winning, that still would have put the number slightly over 20. I won’t quibble. My point remains valid in either case.)

What about Nikola Jokić, the guy who everyone seemed to have crowned the MVP when the season was just half over because Joel Embiid hadn’t played enough and LeBron got injured? (Worth noting: LeBron says Curry’s the MVP.)

Well, Jokić had an impressive season, but he didn’t finish among the top five in any of the six main categories (scoring, assists, rebounding, 3-pointers, blocks, and steals). Only one player led in two of those.

Guess who?

Curry was not only the scoring champ, he was far and away the best 3-point shooter. His 5.3 per game was a whopping 23 percent better than the next guy on the list, who’s no slouch, either: Damian Lillard.

And it’s not as though Jokić elevated his team, the Denver Nuggets, significantly over last season. They won 47 games this year and finished third in the Western Conference — just like last year, when they won 46.

The Nuggets actually won one less game this year, so if Curry’s at plus-24, Jokić is at minus-1.

Curry won the scoring title, but Jokić wasn’t even in the top 10 in scoring this year. He was 12th. Two other former MVPs — Russell Westbrook and Giannis Antetokounmpo — both finished ahead of him in two of the “big three” categories: Giannis in scoring and rebounding, Westbrook in rebounding and assists. Yet few people are talking about either of them as potential MVPs. Westbrook hasn’t even been in the conversation.

Giannis’ Bucks finished as a third seed, just like the Nuggets, with a nearly identical record. Granted, Giannis didn’t elevate his team this year, either — which seems to be counting against him... but the same thing isn’t counting against Jokić.

Westbrook’s Wizards, meanwhile, were awful in the first part of the season, when he was injured, but caught fire when he returned and started rebounding and dishing out assists like a madman.

He proved his value to the team, just like Curry proved his. And it is the most VALUABLE player award.

But a lot of people had their minds made up before Curry and Westbrook worked their magic. Maybe they wanted a fresh face to win the award, so they made Jokić the presumptive pick when Embiid got injured. Or maybe they were just being stubborn and didn’t want to change their minds.

They’d cast their ballots in their heads at the All-Star break, and nothing Curry did during his astounding April or his miraculous May made a damn bit of difference to them. A reminder: he averaged 37.3 points a game in April and 36.8 in May, and was named Western Conference player of the month both months.

Curry probably won’t win the MVP award, but there’s no question he deserves it.

If you have any doubts, just keep that one number in your mind.

24.

That’s all you need to know.