James Harden is the MVP of this NBA season. He has been the frontrunner for most of the year, but the recency of other candidates performing well during the latter parts of the season has turned what was common knowledge of Harden’s legitimacy into a debate. Is he being touted as first choice as sympathy for him losing out on the award in previous seasons? Others suggest his team record is what his candidacy relies on.
This is all an absurd and shameful diminishment of Harden’s accomplishments this year.
There have been arguments that LeBron James deserves the award, and James himself voiced he would vote for himself as MVP. That’s fine, James has had a spectacular season at the age of 33, a time when he should be in the twilight in his career. He’s managed to do so even after his team went through a complete makeover mid-season. He led them to 50 wins and the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
In almost all of the offensive categories that Harden succeeds at, James is close to him. James is at 19.1 in Player Impact Estimate (under Harden’s 19.4), fourth in usage percentage, third in assist percentage, under Harden, second in assists per game, and has a better true shooting and eFG percentage than Harden.
There’s nothing wrong with having a legitimate argument of who should get the award between Harden and James. James played in all 82 games, Harden missed nine. James will finish with more minutes, points, assists, blocks, and rebounds total. James also led his own team in almost all offensive categories. There’s the subjective nature of supporting casts: James supposedly has less skilled teammates and still managed to have the year he’s had with that handicap. We know that the MVP doesn’t necessarily have to play for the best team in the league. Then there’s of course the argument of inherent ability, that James should win because he’s obviously the better player between the two, even if Harden happens to have the better year.
The problem comes when people try to bring down Harden, either to try and prop up James or to try and make an argument.
Harden’s case is incredibly strong. He finished as the league’s top scorer, averaging 30.4 points. He was third in assists with 8.8, right under James’ 9.2 and Russell Westbrook’s 10.1. He also did this with an effective field goal percentage of 54.1 percent, with his true shooting percentage at 61.9 percent. All while shooting the most threes in the league with 265 and isolating more frequently than anyone else in the NBA.
Harden is number four in offensive rating at 114.6, under two of his teammates, Chris Paul, Eric Gordon and Golden State’s Kevin Durant.
He’s first in offensive win shares, he’s second only to Stephen Curry in offensive box plus/minus, he’s second to Paul in real plus/minus. This is all so boring and redundant but it at least goes to show that Harden is the best offensive player in the league. There are some things that others are better than him at, at least in this year, but cumulatively, his greatness and his distance from others, is very obvious.
The MVP award is a season-to-season award that can be influenced by narratives if the narrative is strong enough. Westbrook won it last year because he did a very spectacular thing while being one of the best crunch-time players. He led his team to victories in games that looked lost and took them to the playoffs after the Thunder lost their best player to Golden State. Harden had a wonderful season last year and had a legit argument on why he should have won as well.
That Harden is now leading the conversation this year isn’t an attempt to make up for last year, or when he lost out to Curry. This isn’t about narrative. He’s the obvious pick because of how absurdly good he was this year.
It’s mind-blowing that he keeps getting better. He deserves the MVP because he has the body of work this season to make his case. He has transcended himself. It’s not sympathy to recognize that, it’s common sense.
The Rockets have their record because of Harden’s work. His campaign as MVP doesn’t rest on the fact that they’re the best team in the league — they’re the best team in the league because he’s the center of their team and he’s been ridiculous for the entire season. It’s a team built to maximize his strengths — as good teams usually are for their superstars, look at what the Cavs did for James this season — and his strength happens to be that he’s a once-in-a-lifetime offensive player. Without him, they don’t get anywhere close to their team record of 65 wins. There’s no sense in denying that.
The sympathy outlook on Harden’s candidacy is an insincere attempt to make an argument when the answer to who is MVP is apparent. He’s had such a ridiculous year that he’s only 50 points behind James in total points scored this season, 2,251 to 2,191, even while missing nine games. That’s not a denigration of James, that’s an example of how ridiculous Harden has been.
James’ case and every other case can be argued without having to critique Harden’s year, because the suggestions of why Harden doesn’t deserve the award aren’t supported by reason. To think of the MVP as a reward for anything else than the fact that Harden deserves it through his work, is to casually disregard one of the best offensive player this season and one of the best players we’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.
