Checking in on where Victor Oladipo stands in the NBA MVP race

The front-runner

If anyone tells you this isn’t James Harden’s award to lose, they either have an extreme bias against facial hair, step-backs, or the Houston Rockets’ broadcast team (the last of which is completely justifiable. Clyde Drexler makes Tommy Heinsohn seem neutral).

Harden’s leading the league in scoring, usage rate and Player Efficiency Rating while sporting a 62.5 true shooting percentage. Houston also has the best record in the league.

If he pulls off the feat, it would put him in rarified air. Aside from the 13 multiple winners of the award, only three men have won it and finished second two other times: Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson and Kevin Garnett. Harden would be the fourth. As for the other 10? The list of dudes who never pulled off this career achievement include Kobe Bryant, Hakeem Olajuwon, Oscar Robertson, Charles Barkley, Jerry West, Dirk Nowiztki and Allen Iverson. That’s a somewhat respectable group.

As Bill Simmons recently discussed with Kevin O’Connor on his podcast, it would take an injury to the Beard or an otherworldly closing stretch from someone else for him not to win. It’s his award to lose.

Plus, he just did this: