Steph Curry added another NBA accolade to his already impressive résumé.
The four-time champion and two-time league MVP was voted the NBA's Clutch Player of the Year for the 2023-24 season, beating out Chicago Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, TNT analyst Charles Barkley announced Thursday.
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Curry received 45 of the 99 first-place votes and beat out DeRozan by 26 total points.
The NBA introduced the Clutch Player of the Year award last season, given to the player who "best comes through for his teammates in the clutch." The award's recipient -- Kings point guard De'Aaron Fox became the first last year -- receives the Jerry West Trophy, named after the Los Angeles Lakers legend who earned himself the nickname "Mr. Clutch" for his lights-out shooting at the end of close games.
Curry joined TNT's "NBA Tip-Off" pregame show after the announcement, and was asked about what it means to win an award named after West, who helped build the Warriors into perennial championship contenders.
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"His basketball career on the floor speaks for itself," Curry told Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal. "I think he just recently entered the Naismith Hall of Fame for a third time for a third different reason, so his résumé is what it is, but when you see him in person, you realize how much basketball matters to him, how competitive he is, how much he wants to win no matter what seat he's in, and that rubbed off on our organization during that time when we were trying to find ourselves as a championship contender. So any time Jerry West says something, you're going to listen."
In 142.9 crunch-time minutes -- or the period when the score is within five points with five or fewer minutes left -- Curry scored a league-leading 189 points with 32 made 3-pointers. The 36-year-old also shot 49.6 percent from the field in clutch minutes, with multiple game-winners coming from his hot hand in 2023-24.
Early in his NBA career, Curry dealt with a narrative that he wasn't a clutch player, but this latest honor dispels that notion.
"You've got to be able to deal with failure," Curry told the TNT crew when asked what allows him to succeed in clutch moments. "... You have to be OK with the shot you miss and have a short memory with it. I don't know if anything clicked, other than knowing just how much time you put into the game, and with that time comes deserved confidence -- 'OK, I'm ready for whatever moment you find yourself in, whatever shot you need to take.'
"Everybody remembers the highlights and whatnot, but there are plenty of shots you miss that you walk off the court like, 'Yeah, that was a good one I should have taken and wish I would have made,' but you move on to the next. You've got to have a little amnesia built in there, and that's the only way you can kind of keep coming back to those moments with the same type of confidence."
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