No one who saw Stephen Curry score an NBA-record 17 points overtime of Golden State's 132-125 victory over the Trail Blazers in Game Four of the Western Conference semifinals Monday night would be surprised to here he was announced as the NBA's Most Valuable Player for the second-consecutive season Tuesday morning. What's more, Curry garnered all 131 first-place votes, making him the first unanimous MVP in the history of the award. There's a strong case to be made that the series between the Warriors, a team that set the NBA record for wins in a season this year with 73, and Trail Blazers would be tied at 2-2 were it not for Curry's return from an right MCL sprain, which is just another small piece of evidence as to Curry's status as truly the league's most valuable player.
While Curry had MVP locked up well before the All-Star break, the rest of the ballot was far more unpredictable, with San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard edging out Cleveland's LeBron James for second. The Oklahoma City duo of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant finished fourth and fifth, respectively, with Clippers point guard Chris Paul coming in sixth and Curry's teammate Draymond Green taking seventh.
Then there's Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard, who received one third-place vote, four fourth-place votes and nine fifth-place votes to finish eighth in the final MVP tally. What's perhaps most impressive about Lillard's eighth-place finish is that he did so despite only getting two fifth-place votes from the Portland media. Lillard, the lone returning starter from the 2014-15 team, averaged 25.1 points, 6.8 assists and 4.7 rebounds in 35.7 minutes per game this season while leading the Trail Blazers to their third-consecutive postseason appearance and just their second playoff series victory in the last 16 years.
Lillard finished ahead of Houston's James Harden and Toronto's Kyle Lowry to round out the top 10 vote-getters. Coincidentally enough, Lillard is the only player to finish in the top 10 in MVP voting who did not make the 2016 All-Star Game. Try to get that right next time, eh fans and NBA head coaches?
While Lillard fell well short of winning MVP, he still has a strong chance of being named to one of the three All-NBA teams, which are typically announced in late-May.