Christian NBA superstar Stephen Curry has just become the first unanimous winner of the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in the history of the league, sweeping all 131 first-place votes to earn the game's highest individual honour for a second straight season.
In doing so, the Golden State Warriors point guard surpassed the achievements made by such NBA greats as Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James.
Curry joined Johnson, Jordan and Steve Nash as the only guards to win the honour in consecutive campaigns.
Already considered as one of the league's greatest ever three-point shooters, Curry led the NBA in scoring with an average of 30.1 points a game and a record 402 three-point baskets as he led the Warriors to an unprecedented 73-9 win-loss mark in the regular season, according to Reuters.
Curry received the award on Tuesday, a day after returning from injury to playoff action with an explosive performance as he led the Warriors to a Game 4 Western Conference semi-finals victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Curry then once again led the Warriors to victory over the same team on Wednesday, eliminating the Trail Blazers, 4-1, and advancing to the Western Conference finals playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder beginning on Monday in Oakland.
After receiving his second consecutive MVP award on Tuesday, Curry said it's important for him to inspire the future generation of basketball players, just as he was inspired when he was still a young boy. "I never really set out to change the game," he told ESPN. "What I wanted to do was be myself... I know it inspires the next generation. You can work every day to get better."
"When there are legends and people that I looked up to as a player—as a young kid, as a basketball player—Hall of Famers and guys that talk about our team, it means that obviously we're doing something good, so we keep doing it," he added.
Not only is Curry an inspirational basketball player, but he is also an all-around good guy that people love to hang out with. "You make going to work every day, for me, a true joy," Warriors general manager Bob Myers said to Curry. "It's very hard not to like you. I find it impossible. We should all appreciate this, appreciate this time, appreciate this moment, because life is happening fast."
Interviewed by FCA Magazine in an article on its May-June 2016 issue, Curry said when he plays he wants people to see "something different about that guy."
"I'm not a guy who's going to be trying to bash people over the head with the Bible. I want people to know when they see me play that something is different, that I play for something different, and whether I'm talking about it [or not], I just hope by the way I carry myself and by the way I play the game, they can see there's something different about that guy. And they find out what it is and then they know. It's part of who I am," he says.
