"(excluding LeBron, KD and The Brow) I have as good of a chance of winning (MVP) as any remaining NBA player" - Me, being an idiot, October 2014
Occasionally, making a bold prediction results in your words being eaten, and I've been binge-snacking on my own stupidity for several months.
The NBA is neck-deep into the most wide open MVP race the league's seen in quite some time, and not in the "has anyone really made a case for this award?" sense (see: Nash, Steve; 2005), but more "there's a lot of guys playing out of their fucking minds right now".
Depending on how you want to define "value" in the intentionally-ambiguous context of this award, it could go to any of several players, all of whom are deserving in a sense. The sudden obsession with advanced metrics has only muddied the water, adding even more facets to what was already a complex issue. Anyone with an educated MVP argument now has to consider elements like "Win Shares" and "True +/-"; concepts that for most intents and purposes didn't even exist a few years ago.
This year's MVP race has become a dizzying, confounding debate in which no fewer than five players hold very legitimate claims to the trophy, with razor-thin margins between them. It's a compelling, entertaining, all-out war for supremacy where powers trade places on a weekly basis. It's basically a Game of Thrones season playing out on a basketball court. Spring is coming, so it's almost time for the winner to be crowned - who stands the best shot?
The Pretenders
These are the guys on the outside looking in; the ones who've heard their name and "MVP" in the same sentence a couple times this year, but mostly by under-educated fans or attention-seeking media, and usually in conjunction with alcohol or meth consumption:
- DeMarcus Cousins (has had a very good year for a very dysfunctional franchise)
- Jeff Teague (sorry, but if you think one player on Atlanta deserves to be singled out in the MVP race, you're completely delusional about what makes them successful)
- Klay Thompson & Damian Lillard (if you're not your own team's MVP, you can't be the league's MVP)
The Tweeners
These guys have had absolutely stellar seasons that in any lesser year would surely be legitimate MVP campaigns, but can't quite call themselves contenders in 2015:
- Chris Paul (as superb as he's been in a snapshot, the Clippers have just been way too inconsistent, while CP3 has oscillated between mailing-in stretches and taking over games)
- LaMarcus Aldridge (decided to forego hand surgery that would've sent Portland's season straight into the toilet, and instead has put up sublimely-efficient 20/10 lines for a likely Top-4 seed out West)
- Marc Gasol (got off to a torrid start, only to see his output dissipate slightly amid a recent slump for Memphis, who are showing cracks for the first time all season)
The Contenders
...And here are the five players who are going to make picking an MVP this year an outright nightmare:
Anthony Davis
Davis just turned 22, and he's already a WMD on both sides of the ball, and terrifying the entire league with what they're in store for over the next decade. His defensive dominance and all-around brilliance are incredibly precocious, and he's carried an injury-ravaged Pelicans squad to within striking distance of the NBA's promise land: The West Playoffs.
Davis' odds of winning are likely heavily-predicated on that stupidly arbitrary benchmark of New Orleans making the Playoffs, which seems unlikely after they dropped four straight, falling to 10th in the West. That said, it bears noting that he's on pace for a PER of 31.31, a mark bested ever only by Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan. Again, this guy is 22 years old. He stands a very slim chance of winning MVP this year, but will certainly be filling that void in his trophy case soon.
LeBron James
The season started off in pretty disastrous fashion for the Default MVP; the Cavs were underwhelmingly crappy, and LeBron was, by his own lofty standards, casual and sluggish. There was much ado about all the miles his herculean body had logged, his ability to placate a ball-dominatrix like Kyrie Irving, and David Blatt's viability as an NBA coach.
Then LeBron took a much-needed (and more-chronicled) two week siesta in South Beach, and came back every bit the dream-crusher we all knew him to be. Not-so-coincidentally, the Cavs were suddenly steamrolling their way up the East standings, and looking like the contender they were pegged as preseason.
LeBron - for the first time in ages - is likely only a fringe contender to the MVP crown this year. If we're looking at his complete body of work, his first 28 games were largely a disappointment, and then he gave himself an 8-game vacation to get right. Regardless of how much he needed it, and the results it yielded, we're talking almost half a season there. Worse yet for his case, the next three guys have put in blatantly ridiculous seasons.
Stephen Curry
Steph Curry's having an outstanding season for an outstanding team; a mind-warping offensive threat who shreds teams like few others ever have. But it's the 'outstanding team' part that should be hurting his case.
With all due respect to Curry - and to common MVP voting logic - the MVP is an individual award. There's this awkward bias toward rewarding the 'best player on the best team' - which Curry absolutely is - that misplaces the sense of the word 'valuable'.
Team success should definitely be factored into the decision, but arbitrarily rewarding that 'best player on the best team' is missing the forest for the trees. Curry's been dominant, no question, but the Warriors' thriving this season has come from many directions:
- Andrew Bogut's been extremely healthy by his standards.
- Klay Thompson's taken a mini leap to "Legitimate All-Star" and "Guy Who Scored 37 Points in a Single Quarter".
- Draymond Green holds a very serious case in both the MIP and DPOY races.
- Their bench is much deeper than it was last season.
- Steve Kerr is, by all evidence, a large upgrade over Mark Jackson on the sidelines.
- David Lee's early injury conveniently forced them into the realization that they're better with a spacing, ball-moving 4, and without Lee's ghastly defense.
Speaking of defense, it's not exactly Curry's specialty either. While he's among the league's steals leaders, he's a gambler who gets beaten off the dribble easily, and is often 'hidden' as the weakest link of Golden State's league-leading D.
Added all up, while Curry's having an offensively-transcendent season, and creates so much of the Dubs' scoring, this is still very much a dominant team that excels for a variety of reasons. Saying he's carried them for any stretch this season would be dumb and unfair, much unlike the following two players:
Russell Westbrook
What Westbrook's done to the rest of the league since returning from a hand injury probably qualifies as abuse in some countries. Attacking opposition with a bloodthirsty relentlessness, he's carried the Thunder while decimating box score sheets, defying most concepts of human stamina, and making trading Kevin Durant an actually-talked-about thing.
Dropping 49 points and a triple-double simultaneously doesn't happen very often. Neither does averaging a triple-double for an entire month. Russell Westbrook did those things to people this year. He averaged a triple-double for an entire fucking month. He even went ballistic in the All-Star game for crying out loud.
Say what you want about his shot selection and conversion rate (.427; .301 from distance), he not only finishes possessions (leads the NBA in scoring), but creates them through rebounds (leads all guards) and steals (2nd in NBA), while having to put up with Dion Waiters in the backcourt.
He's been the Thunder's one consistent heartbeat, and the reason they're likely to make the Playoffs without Durant, whose now-confirmed absence can be another feather in Westy's MVP cap if OKC closes the season strong.There will also be more time to bloat his already-absurd averages of 27/8.7/7 w 2.2 steals and a 29.60 PER (which is the second-highest ever for a point guard). Westbrook's already putting up a strong MVP case, and if any contender has the most upside over the final 10 games (which absolutely matter in a race this close), it's probably him.
James Harden
Harden's MVP narrative is multi-faceted, and speaks most directly to the meaning of 'value'. At this point, he should probably be considered the favorite. Maybe. Sort of. Who knows.
This season was supposed to be shitty for Houston. They'd largely been regarded as last offseason's Biggest Losers, dropping half their key rotation players and fanning on a third star. Things didn't look much better when Dwight Howard and Terrence Jones both went down early with injuries that would plague them all season. All hope seemed lost, but Harden uncorked a 27/7/6 masterpiece that has highly-improbably kept Houston in the fight for homecourt in the West.
There's detractors who will incorrectly point to Harden's once-comical defense, but his efforts and positioning have improved mightily over the past 12 months, and he's averaging almost 2 steals and a block per game. There's a reason why no sequels to James Harden Defensive Juggernaut have been made.
He aces pretty much all of the key MVP criteria, the only of the contenders who can truly make these claims:
- Statistically dominant, both in basic and advanced measures? Check.
- Successful and/or better-than-expected team? Absolutely.
- Carried said team for large stretches? More-so than any other player.
- Healthy all season? Yup.
Better yet, he's the only candidate who doesn't really have any legitimate, glaring holes in a year when every minor scuff or smudge on a resume has to count. Unlike LeBron's sleepwalking through the early season, Westbrook's injury and occasional spazz-outs, Curry's all-around team brilliance or The Brow's lack thereof, there's no real knock on Harden's 2014-15 campaign. Which is why he's (maybe, sort of, who knows) the likeliest MVP at this point, but in a race this close, anything can happen over the season's final month...
