Heisler: Time for Steph Curry to try to measure up to Michael Jordan

Steph Curry got 100 of 130 first-place votes for MVP last season. Only James Harden, who got 25, thought that was too many.

LeBron James got the other five but called Curry’s walkover “well deserved.”

In the amazing part, Steph was just warming up.

This spring, he’s likely to be the NBA’s first unanimous MVP, assuming they don’t let Harden vote.

Predicting something that has never happened is foolhardy. Predicting this isn’t because no MVP has ever blown away his own exploits as Curry has.

Last season, he averaged 24 points as the Warriors went 67-15.

This season, he’s at 30 with the Warriors on a 75-7 pace.

A year ago, he made 286 threes, breaking his own single-season record by 14.

That record will fall this week — with Curry on pace to make an undreamed of 400.

The elite shooters’ numbers, once landmarks into the unknown, are now bowling pins for Steph to knock down.

Ray Allen retired in 2014 with the all-time record of 2,973 threes.

Reggie Miller was 413 back at 2,560.

No one else had 2,000.

It took Allen 19 seasons. With 1,467 starting the weekend, at his current pace Curry will catch him in his 11th season.

Only one player as small as Curry — Steve Nash — ever won back-to-back MVPs.

If that signaled a new NBA age, the real comparison to me is between Steph and the unchallenged and seemingly unchallengeable Michael Jordan.

This, of course, would be the biggest mind-bender of all.

Mike, at 6-6, 215, was a prodigy with size, strength and athleticism.

Steph’s slender build makes him look smaller than his 6-2 at the 2009 pre-draft camp and the 190 pounds the Warriors claim he has bulked up to.

Everyone assumed only another athletic prodigy like Kobe Bryant or LeBron James could challenge MJ.

Brilliant as Kobe was, he was wild. Despite being 6-7, 260, Bron didn’t have the post game Mike used to score at will as his athleticism faded.

Curry’s gift is his unmatched perfectability.

At 5-6, 160 in high school, he was still bringing the ball up from his waist until his father, Dell, an NBA three-point ace, made him spend a summer fixing it.

The story is well known: no major college offers ... downgraded by NBA scouts at Davidson ... chip on his shoulder.

In the part you don’t see every day, or ever, Steph just did it again.

Advertisement

His lightning-fast release is now faster, as if going from a fact to a rumor. He now takes 10.1 threes a game to last season’s 8.1 — making 46 percent to last season’s 44 percent.

With uncay speed, accuracy and range — he has made 45% from 30-40 feet — he’s next to unguardable on pick-and-rolls and his team next to unbeatable.

He’s far more than a shooter. No less than Bob Knight called him the greatest passer he had ever seen at Davidson.

You know how Bob gets, but Steph has a 6.9 assists average in the NBA. He has missed 12 games in four seasons.

That leaves but one thing — but it’s the big one:

Curry has to show he can do this over time, starting with wiing enough titles to compare to Jordan’s six.

If Steph only comes close to Mike, who ever did that?

Not to subscribe to the notion that history dates to 1980 or, the earliest, 1970, but Oscar Robertson’s jibe about mode coaches not understanding defense is laughable from a player allowed to back smaller defenders all the way to the hoop.

Warriors Coach Steve Kerr does a nightly act, lampooning criticism by stars of yesteryear.

“I would have shut down Steph,” said Kerr last week in Orlando, playing along.

“Players 50 years ago were bigger, faster and more finely tuned. Steph might not have made it in the league.”

Steph then scored 51 on the Magic.

Curry is a blessing for the NBA, with pent-up decades of adoration awaiting a small player as good as the big ones, much less one Mouseketeer size.

Curry is as hot as it gets with his jersey outselling all others. The Warriors aren’t the Lakers yet, but another title should get them in the old conversation, if only by the new math (two titles today equal three or four yesterday).

Actually, there’s something else for Curry to do:

Knock off the showboat ignore-flight-of-ball-while-it-goes-through-net shimmy, the mouthpiece-chewing-nothing-but-net free throw, et al.

I know the other stars do stuff like that, but Mike only talked trash discreetly, as befit a living legend.

Steph is in a higher league now and has been for a while.

Mark Heisler has written an NBA column since 1991 and was honored with the Naismith Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award in 2006. His column is published Sundays in Los Angeles News Group print editions.

- - , .