NBA MVP race looks to be wide open in reshuffled league hierarchy

James Harden of the Houston Rockets put together an epic season as a scorer in 2018-19, but it wasn’t enough to get him a second straight NBA MVP.

Harden was the first player in the 21st century to average at least 36 points per game, finishing at 36.1, which was the highest since Michael Jordan in 1986-87 and put him in an elite group with Jordan (once) and Wilt Chamberlain (five times) as the only NBA players ever to reach that average in a season.

But with the Rockets getting off to a dismal start last season and finishing 12 victories worse than their franchise-record 65-17 mark in 2017-18, Harden finished a distant second to Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks in the voting, with Antetokounmpo pulling in 78 of the 101 first-place votes cast (Harden got the remaining 23).

Any Harden candidacy this season will be tempered by his new running mate in Houston’s backcourt, another former MVP in Russell Westbrook.

So it’s not likely Harden will (a) get 24.5 shots per game or (b) average 36.1 points a night.

He also put up 6.6 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 2.0 steals in 36.8 minutes per game, shooting 44.2 percent overall and 36.8 percent on 13.2 (yes, 13.2) 3-point attempts nightly.

He also averaged at least 10 free throw attempts per game for the fifth consecutive season and the sixth time in his seven years with the Rockets, getting a career-high 11.0 attempts per game.

That is also a factor with the voters, many of whom do not appreciate the aesthetics of watching Harden shoot free throws all night.

But he is still a dynamic force at the offensive end and will be part of the discussion for the MVP before everything is counted and the trophy handed out at some point several months after the 2019-20 regular season has concluded.