the shameless campaigning for the harden mvp this year (and two years ago, too) is really lame. harden coming out and trying to play the media with his "no rest" stuff, conveniently timed with the injury leak to that mouthpiece masquerading as a journalist (watkins, ugh). that franchise is just putrid.
Announced during the Spurs / Dubs game that the NBA is going to have an awards ceremony in late June to present all of the awards. No more ROY, 6th Man, Coach, MVP being announced each week during the playoffs.
Westbrook. He's 8 games away from doing something no one has done since 1962, average a triple double. Almost every NBA legend has played between then and now, and no one has done it, not Magic, not Jordan, no one. I don't care if OKC isn't in the top 4 in the West which is apparently some made up unwritten rule for getting MVP, they're the 6th seed, it's 2 spots out, big deal. They aren't barely squeaking in at the 8th spot, they're barely out of the 5th, and without Westbrook they are in the hunt for a top 5-10 pick. Yeah, Harden has had a great season, but it's not Westbrook's season, it's not all time historic.
Stupid Magic missed it by like one assist or something that one year... But yeah it's Westbrook's award.
I think Harden (and Nash before him) has flashy numbers based on the 8 seconds or less offensive system of 'Antoni. Unlike those 2, Westbrook plays defense. Kobe got robbed. Westbrook will too.
as 3:16 stated, dantoni has a penchant for inflating stats (nash, marion, jeremy freaking lin). houston's also basically sold its soul (overpaid for frail, no-d players who miraculously stayed healthy enough to keep houston out of 7th place) to ensure harden's mvp candidacy. meanwhile, okc lost an actual mvp and replaced him with nothing. they're on pace to win about 10 fewer games, and it's all about westbrook's dominance. this is eerily similar to kobe/nash in...was it 06? again: best player: lebron most important player on a contender: leonard most outstanding performance: westbrook you'd have to invent a bizarre category to give it to taco bell.
It's not the flashy numbers, it's that Westbrook is absolutely carrying his team. They lost Durant, they replaced Ibaka, and they lost Kanter to injury for a month or so there, and Westbrook has them as the 6th seed in the West, not far off from the 5th seed. That's incredibly impressive, he does not have a good team around him yet he's averaging a triple double. He also plays hard on BOTH sides of the floor. I'm supposed to be more impressed with Harden a few seeds higher with inflated numbers due to the 'Antoni effect also taking into account that he doesn't play defense? I'm not.
i think mash needs to elaborate. if the "flashy numbers" is an argument being made against both harden and westbrook (and thus for leonard and lebron), i'll grant it. if it's being made to prop up harden, it's...misguided.
I'm not saying he isn't the favorite, but everyone geeks over triple doubles. There's often a good deal of stat padding, especially with assists.
Yeah, but how do you really stat pad assists when your teammates suck? And not just my opinion "suck", backed up by stats and facts that they aren't very good. They almost need him to get triple doubles to win, again backed up by stats, if he doesn't play at a ridiculously high level they don't win. Example, Orlando game yesterday Westbrook shot 21-40, rest of the team was somewhere around 22-61. That's bad. They were down big and came back in that game and then Westbrook hit the 3 to tie and send it to OT, that's MVP stuff.
I mean, when your team is mediocre at best, I find it hard to see how he is stat padding. Or lots of stars who were on bad teams would have been averaging a triple double.
Starbury averaged 20 and 8 for career, from mediocre to bad teams. Enough said, there. Also RWs usage is at 41. Kobe's highest year was 38. Now he want's the PG and the team had good rebounders, if nothing else. OCK is top in rebounding, the rest of the team is more than pulling their weight. When RW started racking up the 3x2's some have speculated that he would pass up shots til he was close to 10. The okc's poor shooting explains the high board numbers, but some would he would better served getting out on the break, since the rest of the rest of the team is so adept. Again, my mvp pick, but people are too foced on fancy numbers.
i'm still confused. if you don't think harden's stat padding in equal proportion, watch a houston game. particularly when they're winning and he's still playing late. so, if you want to argue that there's too much stat focus, leonard's your guy. but it can't be harden.