Houston Rockets: 3 reasons James Harden is the MVP frontrunner

With historic numbers on one of the league’s best teams, James Harden’s case for MVP may be even stronger than last year’s campaign.

We all thought that James Harden had reached his individual peak last season, where he averaged 30.4 points and 8.8 assists per game in leading the Houston Rockets to 65 wins and his very first MVP trophy.

Except now, whatever ceiling the seven-time All-Star supposedly had has been raised to new levels in the 2018-19 campaign. In averaging 36.1 points per game, Harden isn’t just leading the league in scoring by a wide margin, he’s joined an exclusive club, the likes of which only guys like Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain are members of.

While the Rockets got off to a slow start early in the season, they now sit third in the Western Conference with a 45-27 record despite a number of injuries to nearly every important player who doesn’t wear No. 13. Chris Paul, Clint Capela and Eric Gordon have all missed chunks at a time, but it was Harden who not only kept this team afloat, but helped elevate it to where it is today.

History has shown us it’s very difficult to win back-to-back MVPs. It usually takes something of historic proportions the second time around in order to convince those who may be looking elsewhere with voter fatigue. Stephen Curry was the last to do it in 2015 and 2016 after knocking down a record 402 3-pointers and leading the Golden State Warriors to an NBA-record 73 wins.

Whether or not Harden’s numbers match up with Steph’s is another conversation for another day, but with one of the greatest scoring seasons this century coupled with a narrative fueled by adversity, it’s easy to see that the MVP discussion for this season shouldn’t really be much of a debate.