Let’s not even think about the East and LeBron for the time being. LeBron is the best player in the league until someone in the West beats him in the Finals with a healthy team around him. Anotherwords, I don’t put all that much stock in what Golden State did two seasons ago in the Finals against a Cleveland team which was decimated by injury.
But this year in the West we have quite an MVP race brewing with the likes of Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Chris Paul, Kawhi Leonard, and Anthony Davis. I’m not sure I could vote for any member of the Golden State Warriors in that they have two previous MVP winners on the same team and four NBA All Stars in their starting five. It’s a team which won 73 games last season and added Kevin Durant in the off season. So how do you decipher who’s their MVP given the fact on any given night it could be either Curry, Durant, Green, or Thompson?
None of the other five canidates I mentioned have the luxury of the Warrior players. Westbrook, Harden, Leonard, and Davis do not have another Top 15 player on their respective rosters. Chris Paul does have Blake Griffin, but he’s the only one with a star supporting him.
Westbrook and Harden would be my top two choices one fourth of the way through this season. Both are having spectacular seasons leading teams with rosters which aren’t talented enough to compete for an NBA championship. Yet both OKC and Houston are having respectable seasons and giving NBA fans some great entertainment. Adam Silver should consider himself fortunate for the Westbrook and Harden narratives this regular season. No one really cares about the regular season otherwise because it’s obvious given the Super Team building which has occurred in Cleveland and Golden State as to who should be in this season’s Finals. Nobody really cares and that says a great deal for the NBA collective bargaining agreement which has allowed this to happen. Silver and his greedy NBA owners should consider themselves fortunate Westbrook and Harden are creating an MVP buzz to make the regular season fun to watch.
There’s just no way I could vote for either Durant or Curry. Especially Durant. He joined a team which won 73 games last season—so how do you calculate his presence is all that valuable until we see if Durant can finally beat LeBron with all these All-Stars surrounding him. We can’t. Plus, we don’t even know if Durant could beat a team with Steph on it since he said no mas after his Game 6 no show in the Western Conference Finals. So in all candor neither Curry or Durant’s regular season numbers mean much of anything. How do you determine if there’s really a ‘most valuable player’ on the Golden State roster. I can assure you that Westbrook, Harden, Leonard, and Davis are clearly their teams’ most valuable player. Can we really say that in regards to Durant or Steph Curry or even Draymond Green?
Keeping in mind how I view the MVP this is how I would vote today with LeBron in his own category over to the side.
Western Conference only:
1 Westbrook
2 Harden
3 Paul
4 Leonard
5 Davis
6 Griffin
7 Durant and Curry
8 Lillard
9 Conley (injured-out indefinitely)
10 Marc Gasol