MVP race for ages
Rockets’ Harden is the clear choice — if not for Leonard, James and Westbrook.
As the MVP race expected to be the NBA’s closest in decades — or at least most widely debated — heads into its final weeks, there is one sure thing. Voters will be considered idiots no matter who wins. • To many, James Harden/Russell Westbrook/ Kawhi Leonard/LeBron James is the obvious choice. No one can be considered as clearly deserving as Harden/Westbrook/ Leonard/James. • (Even that can be considered somewhere between inaccurate and idiotic as arguments can be made in favor of Kevin Durant, Isaiah Thomas, John Wall, Giannis Antetokounmpo and two-time winner Stephen Curry.)
A season after Curry became the first unanimous selection since the award was first given after the 1955-56 season, there is a chance for the closest race since the 1975-76 season when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar edged Bob McAdoo, Dave Cowens and Rick Barry.
With ballots less than two weeks from arriving in voters’ inboxes, the competition is considered so close, and so uncertain, that Sunday’s showdown of Harden and Westbrook at Toyota Center will be treated as key evidence to evaluate the arguments on their behalf.
In an 82-game season, no one contest can hold that kind of power. It will be Game 73 of the regular season, not Game 7 in the postseason. But the MVP race has generated so much attention, and inspired so much debate, such showdowns offer, if nothing else, potential to be more influential to those on the fence looking for a reason to fall on one side or the other.
But there is plenty of evidence to consider with fewer than 10 games remaining in what will be a historic season.
History can be at stake. With Allen Iverson’s induction last September, every eligible former MVP has been elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Of the four favorites, only James, a four-time MVP, has won the award.
So maybe the whole debate is not so trivial, after all. All of which brings us to the arguments to consider:
Triple-double power
In the season of the triple-double, with far more than in any season in NBA history, Westbrook, 28, is certain to do the once unthinkable. Westbrook will be the first player to average a triple-double since the 1961-62 season. He could finish with more triple-doubles in a season than anyone has. Case closed? Not necessarily. Lovely as round numbers might be, Harden is on pace to be the first player since Oscar Robertson to average 28 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds.
Technically, 10 rebounds are two more than the eight Harden averages even if they are treated as if in a different stratosphere. A triple-double is not a finish line in which the winner is the first to cross. It’s shorthand for an impressively large number in each category.
Harden, 27, is on pace to be the first player in NBA history with 2,000 points, 900 assists and 600 rebounds. If he wins the assists title, he will be the top-scoring, single-season assists champion since 197273.
Harden has produced 57.7 points per game through scoring and assists, onetenth of a point behind Nate Archibald’s NBA record of 56.8 set that season.
All that said, no one strived for that celebrated 2,000, 900, 600 milestone. Milestones matter.
Westbrook averaging a triple-double would be significant in the way rushing for 2,000 yards or batting .400 are significant. They’ve been done, but they are landmarks, perhaps symbolic, but irrefutable achievements.
Cannot overlook winning
When Robertson averaged his tripledouble, he did not win the MVP. Neither did Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds that season.
Bill Russell was the MVP for leading the Boston Celtics to 60 wins. Harden’s Rockets will go into Sunday’s showdown 8½ games ahead of Westbrook’s Thunder in the standings. For that matter, the Rockets lead James’ Cavaliers, and James plays with two other All-Stars.
Team success has been an important measure. No MVP in the past 30 years has come from a team finishing lower than third in the conference and with fewer than 50 wins. The Thunder will do both.
Harden and Westbrook clearly get the edge based on the load they carry, but winning is the ultimate measure of value and a team’s record is the statistic that matters most. With that, Leonard has pulled well in front of the pack.
Going into Saturday’s action, San Antonio leads the Rockets by 5½ games. Leonard, 25, might not carry the Spurs as much as Westbrook carries the Thunder or Harden lifts the Rockets. He plays with four former All-Stars with varying degrees of their powers left. But he puts them over the top in close games. No player in NBA history (with a minimum of 375 games played) has a better winning percentage than Leonard. Leonard has led the best team of the group in scoring 47 times.
The best player on the best team argument has won. Though the Spurs have work to do to claim “best team,” there is no debate about their best player.
Defense counts
Leonard does not average as many points, assists or rebounds as the other top contenders, but he is far ahead of the pack on the other end of the court.
For that matter, the Spurs are not only the league’s best defensive team, they are much better than the teams of the other MVP contenders. With Harden’s improvement and James’ slide, Harden and James are much closer than would have been expected. But Leonard is the two-time reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year and a favorite to win it again.
That does not mean defense and offense are equal. A player cannot impact his team’s defense the way Harden and Westbrook have driven their teams’ offenses. If analytics are to be believed, the Spurs are so great defensively because of their depth of stellar defenders, and not specifically because of Leonard, with a defensive rating that ranks 12th on his own team.
Best of the best
Every time Harden acknowledges that he considers himself the NBA’s best player, it makes news. It shouldn’t. He said it before the 2014-15 season. There has been little reason to change his mind in the best season of his career.
If they were forced to be honest, each of the league’s top players must think of himself the same way in order to be as great as each is. But if describing the league’s best player, and not the best or most valuable of the season, James, 32, would be the most prevalent choice. His most recent of three championships tends to speak loudly.
James is averaging more assists and more rebounds than in any season of his career. His shooting percentage and 3-point percentage are the third- and second-best of his career.
But all that might bring the debate to the criteria the NBA intentionally leaves vague. Should the winner be the best player, the player with the best season or the player on top in a strict definition of “most valuable.”
James gets more help than Westbrook, who carries the Thunder, but not as far as Harden has carried the Rockets, who have not gone as far as the Spurs, who don’t rely on Leonard to the same degree as their teams lean on Westbrook and Harden, who do not have the credibility of career accomplishments of James. And they are all easier to spell than Antetokounmpo.
Antetokounmpo is on pace to lead Milwaukee in points, rebounds, assists, blocked shots and steals, which would make him just the fifth player to lead his team in all five categories since blocks and steals became official statistics in the 197374 season.
Thomas is by far the league’s top scorer in the fourth quarter for a team in the race for the Eastern Conference’s best record. Wall has Washington in the same chase. Durant and Curry have been the best players on the best team.
But all of that would lead to a whole other list of arguments.