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2016-17 NBA Awards Season: Ranking The Top 4 MVP Candidates

By Gerald Bourguet

Mar 26, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) shake hands after a game at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 26, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) shake hands after a game at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /
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NBA Awards
Apr 16, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) reacts after a play in game one of the first round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /

Flaws In MVP Case

What would an NBA debate be without acknowledging the flaws in each candidate’s MVP case?

For Harden, he missed the third-most field goals in the NBA this season (859) and committed the most turnovers (464). Westbrook, however, missed the most field goals in the league by a massive margin (1,117) and was right behind the Beard in turnovers with 438, the second-most in the association. Those come pretty close to cancelling out.

The biggest knock against Harden’s MVP case is how much more help he had. True enough, the Rockets had three rotation players shoot better than 37 percent from three-point range — Ryan Anderson, Patrick Beverley and Ryan Anderson — on a collective 20.1 attempts per game.

OKC’s only two players to shoot at least 37 percent from three-point range? Alex Abrines and Jeramy Grant, neither of which played at least 20 minutes per game for the Thunder this year and combined for just 5.1 attempts per game.

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    • But even though Harden clearly had more spacing and three-point threats to work with, there’s some kind of misconception that the Rockets’ record-setting three-point season was efficient. Houston ranked 15th in three-point percentage (35.7 percent), but they made so many because they took nearly eight more threes per game than the next closest team.

    Without Harden there to orchestrate Mike D’Antoni’s three-point heavy attack, a revolutionary offense would have decayed into downright reckless territory. There’s a reason Houston got so many quality, open looks: Harden’s ability to freeze a defense with his hesitation drives and zip perfect passes to the open man.

    Are we sure a starting five of Beverley, Gordon, Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson and Clint Capela would’ve been good enough for the playoffs without Harden leading the charge? I’m not. He had more help than Westbrook, but let’s not act like anyone in Houston was anything more than a role player put in the perfect position by the Beard’s exceptional playmaking.

    As for Russ’ flaws, the biggest knock on him was his team’s win total, but again, it’s not like the Thunder were some scrub team. Anthony Davis conjured up legitimate MVP chatter in 2015, and his team barely snuck into the postseason as the 8-seed with 45 wins.

    Westbrook’s team won 47 games, earned the 6-seed and the man averaged a triple-double. If there were ever a case to ignore the arbitrary “3-seed and above” qualification everyone keeps throwing around in this MVP debate, it’d be this kind of scenario right here.

    The other main flaw in Brodie’s MVP case is the allegation that he was padding his stats. You wouldn’t have to look far to see instances where his teammates deferred to him on an easy rebound, or when Russ seemed to be hunting for assists to finish off a triple-double late in games.

    I’d counter with this: So? Even if the man was hunting for triple-doubles down the stretch of the season, there’s a reason no one has done it for an entire season since Oscar: It’s damn near impossible. If every player in the NBA abandoned the team concept and cared only about getting a triple-double, how many could actually pull it off anyway? LeBron James? Maybe James Harden? Maybe Draymond Green or Kevin Durant?

    There’s also the case that Westbrook grabbing those easy rebounds was a boon for his teammates, who were able to get out and run around him as Russ went from zero to 60 in a heartbeat to ignite the fast break:

    As someone who witnessed Westbrook fishing for assists late in a game against the Phoenix Suns firsthand, I cannot deny there were games where Brodie was looking to pad his stats. But to doubt that winning ever came anything but first for one of the NBA’s most maniacal competitors is laughable, and even if he was stat-padding, that was the greatest effing stat-padding season of all time.

    Harden gets the edge here though, if only because you can still knock Russ for his team’s inferior success, his high number of turnovers, his ghastly number of missed shots, and his penchant for getting a little too in the zone to where he didn’t trust teammates late in games.

    Advantage: Harden