Stephen Curry leads the league in points per game and 3-point field goals. Could a third MVP award be in his future (Instagram/@warriors)?


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The Golden State Warriors have made their triumphant return to the upper echelon of the Western Conference behind an MVP-caliber start to the season from their star, Steph Curry. On this episode, Andy Liu of the Light Years podcast has made a similarly triumphant return to this podcast to discuss his expectations for the team this season.

2:55-4:16: “I think they could make the Western Conference finals. I think that’s their upside, and, you know, when you’re in that one series to get into the NBA Finals, anything can happen, especially if you have Steph Curry. … I think the worst-case scenario is just Steph Curry being hurt and if that happens, I mean, all right, here comes another lottery pick, right? But other than that, I think this team is bare minimum what that team was last season. They’re an eighth seed, seventh seed at the very least.”

5:06-4:30: “The amount of love Steph got when the Warriors went 15-5 at the end of last season with no chance of actually winning anything, it was incredible. It felt like everybody loved him, and he never got that same love when he was winning titles. … Steph is not a different player than he was in 2018 when they beat the Cavs. … He’s the same guy, but because the Warriors in the last few seasons, especially the last one, didn’t have a chance to win a championship, I think people are coming out the woodwork and saying, ‘All right, it’s safe now to love Steph.'”

13:02-13:41: “I think Jordan Poole has proved that he has a lot of talent, especially you saw at the end of last season. He has a lot of talent, and he’s the only guy on this team, even if Klay comes back, he’s the only guy on this team that can get to the hole consistently. It’s basically Steph, Jordan Poole and maybe Andrew Wiggins, depending on what he ate for breakfast that day. … If he’s bad now, that’s okay, you got to let him play through it. It’s more about what he looks like in March at the end of the season when they’re gearing up for a playoff run.”

16:25-17:18: “[Wiseman] was put in a position to fail last season. Just quite honestly he was thrown into the fire, and he wasn’t given much to actually succeed. … They also had him running Steve Kerr’s system where they were doing split cuts and intricate passing designs. When the hell has a 19-year-old ever been able to do that? That made no sense, and so he failed. He failed in those moments, and I don’t blame the kid. Now what I think was successful near the end of the season, they started to put him in pick-and-roll and have them just run to the rim and dunk the ball. That’s it. He was getting more comfortable, and then he tore his meniscus.”

24:15-24:32: “They picked up guys [Otto Porter, Nemanja Bjelica and Andre Iguodala] that knew their role, knew how to play basketball and weren’t going to make mistakes, and I think that’s really what makes life a lot easier and what made Warriors basketball so much fun to watch. And they’re bringing that back this season.”

29:05-31:28: “I don’t think at any point Steve Kerr should be fired. I think Steve Kerr should be the coach of this team as long as he wants to be the coach of this team because he doesn’t do anything that that really derails the team. He’s not actively making the team worse, but he hasn’t also made the team better these last few years. … This season, they put a very veteran-laden coaching staff around him. Kenny Atkinson was an incredible coach for the Nets; he’s on the staff now. Ron Adams is still there. They brought in a couple of player development coaches, [DeJan] Milojević and another one from Toronto, Jama Mahlalela. I think that with those guys, it’s made his life a lot easier.”

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.