Of all the NBA awards none have been better fodder for discussion than the most prestigious of them all: Most Valuable Player. It seems this season the MVP debate started earlier than usual, and with the regular season set to wrap Thursday night the candidates— James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard, and LeBron James— will have done all they can to make their case.
Now it’s Sportsnet’s hoops panel’s turn to weigh in with their choices for the 2016-17 NBA MVP:
Michael Grange: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder.
I can make the case for Kawhi Leonard or maybe even LeBron James over James Harden and/or Russell Westbrook, with a little bit of home town love for DeMar DeRozan being somewhere on my ballot, if not in the top-four. But once in a very rare while an athlete crosses thresholds that are so rarely achieved and do so in such over-whelming fashion that history will never forget.
Part of a truly great season is capturing the public’s imagination. Harden came oh-so-very close and himself put together a season that no other player has since Oscar Robertson and in any other year he would likely be the MVP. But it’s been a crazy year. James has arguably had his best offensive season and yet as a four-time MVP, he’ll likely finish third on most ballots, but it takes intellectual fence-jumping to have Westbrook anywhere but No.1 Like a baseball player chasing a .400 season or a hockey player gunning for 200 points or a running back grinding for 2000 yards, Westbrook’s statistical assault has been so relentless it can’t be ignored. As a bonus it has seemingly been in the name of winning— or at least not at the expense of it— as OKC was in the running for a 50-win season, has secured the sixth seed and were 33-9 in the 42 games Westbrook had a triple double. He’s my MVP.
Craig Battle: Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio Spurs.
Fact: The criteria for this award does not exist. But an established pattern for victory does.
Since I was born in early 1980, 37 guys have won the award. The worst team finish by total wins for an MVP in that time? Seventh, which was done twice (once in 1981–82 by Moses Malone and once in 1987–88 by Michael Jordan). The average team finish for an MVP? 1.8.
So that established pattern I mentioned: With very rare exceptions, NBA MVP goes to the clearly established team MVP with the most wins.
The question then becomes: Does the best team in the league have an obvious MVP? In the case of 2016–17, the answer is no. Golden State is a multi-headed monster that doesn’t rely on a single entity enough to qualify anyone.
But the second-best team in the league does have one: Kawhi Leonard. He’s the 61-win Spurs’ most important player on both ends, and he shines in both traditional and advanced stats. He might not lead the league in PER (Westbrook) or Win Shares (Harden), but he’s high up on just about every leaderboard.
Harden is close here, as he’s dominating and his team has 54 wins. But Westbrook would be a major MVP outlier. His team will finish with the 10th-most wins in the league, which — traditionally speaking — hasn’t been good enough to get anyone else the hardware.
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Eric Smith: Westbrook.
I was prepared to give this to Leonard right up until the last 2-3 weeks (I’m a firm believer in 2-way players). But there’s no denying the incredible, historic season Westbrook has turned in. LeBron James is deserving. So too is James Harden. But there’s a big part of me that thinks the Cavs and Rockets (and Spurs) could still be playoff teams without those aforementioned players. Maybe not top 3, but top 8 for sure. The Thunder? They’d be lost without Westbrook and perhaps a bottom-third team in the NBA. Take away the triple-doubles and just look at his impact on winning, period. He does everything. And it all came in the first year removed from Kevin Durant and his salt-in-the-wounds departure to Golden State.
Michael Hoad: Westbrook.
There’s no wrong choice between Westbrook and Harden but I’m giving it to the former. He’s averaging a triple-double, posting a record 42** of them in the process, but what’s perhaps most impressive is how he is able to take over a game like no one else in the league. Westbrook can seamlessly flip a switch and become completely unguardable. He’ll beat you with his athleticism or his clutch shooting – or oftentimes both. Not only is he going to win the scoring title, Westbrook also leads the NBA in fourth-quarter scoring and has carried the Thunder to the sixth seed in the Western Conference.
Donnovan Bennett: Leonard.
He not only leads Westbrook in win shares per 48 but also defensive win shares. Westbrook might be an incrementally better offensive player than Leonard but he’s not nearly as efficient, while the Spurs star is miles ahead of Russell defensively.
Oscar Robertson didn’t win MVP when he averaged a triple double (actually he finished third). Bill Russell did because he played both ends of the court and he won. Based on the Russell versus Robertson precedent, Leonard should be the MVP. Westbrook became a folk hero because he had a strong media narrative sans Durant and chased double digit stats in an arbitrarily determined categories. Kawhi Leonard quietly made you forget Tim Duncan retired and the Spurs role players are either aging stars or D-League alums. If you had to choose one to be on your team for a game or season who would it be? That’s what I thought.
Steven Loung: Westbrook.
I’ll go into this more in depth on Friday, but it’s real simple: Russell Westbrook is the MVP because he accomplished a feat that hasn’t been seen in over a half century in a statistic that actually matters to people. Sure, you can number-crunch all you want for James Harden to find ways to bolster his case, but recording a record high in triple-doubles, averaging a triple-double and still leading the league in scoring is undeniable, and the last time I checked, no other player has done that this season.
