Ten years ago today, Stephen Curry did not just win MVP. He broke the voting machine.
On May 10, 2016, Curry became the first unanimous MVP in NBA history, collecting every first-place vote after a regular season that felt less like basketball and more like someone had found a cheat code hidden inside the three-point line. He averaged 30.1 points, made an NBA-record 402 threes, won the scoring title, joined the 50-40-90 club, and led the Warriors to a 73-9 record, the best regular season in league history.
The numbers were ridiculous, but the feeling was even stranger. Curry made the impossible casual. He turned 30-footers into rhythm shots, fast breaks into suspense films, and opposing defenses into people trying to catch smoke with oven mitts. Every arena had the same sequence: crowd noise, a tiny window, Curry pulling up from somewhere near the logo, then everyone looking around like they had just seen a magic trick with box-score consequences.
In winning the award, Curry became the 11th player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVPs and the first guard to do it since Steve Nash in 2004-05 and 2005-06. Nash had helped stretch basketball’s imagination. Curry set fire to the old map and handed everyone a new one.
The Warriors’ season did not end with the perfect parade, of course. That is the wrinkle history always brings up. Golden State’s 73-win team lost the NBA Finals to Cleveland after leading 3-1, making the season both legendary and haunted. But the MVP itself remains untouched. Unanimous. Undeniable. A regular-season masterpiece with a green light attached to every inch of hardwood.
A decade later, the league still looks like Curry’s 2016 season happened and never fully stopped happening. Everyone shoots deeper now. Everyone spaces wider. Everyone wants the math, the movement, the panic he created.
Curry did not merely win MVP that year.
He changed what an MVP could look like.
