Laying Out 2015 MVP Cases for NBA's Top Candidates
Say goodbye to NBA trade deadlines and All-Star discussions. The MVP debate takes precedence now.
Almost 75 percent of the way through the regular season, a clear catalog of candidates has emerged. The pack has thinned out to the point where what you see now is what you get. There will be no surprise arrivals. It's too late for newcomers.
Instead, we have a select few superstars duking it out for position on the MVP ladder, rung by rung, game by game. And thus begins the great inquisition: Why are they here?
Providing an answer is only difficult in the sense that there are no uniform parameters to follow. The MVP race, for all its static shine, is an interpretive competition. The reasons for a player's inclusion—or the offered list of players, for that matter—can vary by person and circumstance.
Fortunately, this year's most prominent participants are, once again, pretty much ironed out. What follows is a seminar on why each candidate could earn the Association's most coveted individual honor.
Stats and overall performance are the ticket into this confab. After that, voters must weigh the context of their numbers and performance. And finally, using all this information, a subjective analysis of why a given player may win will determine the strength of his eligibility.
Click onward, folks. Indelible MVP clarity awaits.
James Harden, Houston Rockets
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In this multi-headed MVP chase, James Harden's case is one of the strongest. And for good reason.
Statistically, there isn't anything to debate. Selecting MVPs isn't a scientific process, but snazzy stat lines are, unofficially, part and parcel of staking one's claim. Harden's totals are downright in-your-face ridiculous.
Aside from leading the league in scoring by a 1.1-point margin, Harden is just the third player to average at least 27 points, 5.5 rebounds, 6.5 assists and two steals per game. His company is LeBron James and Michael Jordan, owners of nine regular-season MVP awards combined.
On a collective scale, Harden has the Houston Rockets contending for a top-three playoff seed. Sure, Houston's offense has regressed into middling material. But the Rockets are pumping in 107 points per 100 possessions with Harden on the floor, which would rank sixth overall, and they remain one of the league's best defensive teams, despite Dwight Howard missing a career-high 23 games (and counting).
Their 15-8 record without Howard is especially telling of the job Harden has done. To put it in perspective, Russell Westbrook has led the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 9-6 record in games he's played without Kevin Durant, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are just 2-8 without LeBron James.
Losing superstars hurts, even when there's another one to shoulder the workload left behind. Harden's usage rate has skyrocketed in the wake of Howard's injuries and Houston's lack of playmaking, but his true shooting percentage has held steady. He also ranks first in win shares, as have the last three MVP winners.
Most importantly, the Rockets are alive, still contending for top postseason positioning and a championship—all because Harden, relative to everyone else on this list, is doing a lot with very little.
Why He Won't Win: Stephen Curry has a master's degree in MVP-ing.
Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies
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If there was a "Most Understated MVP Case" award, Marc Gasol wouldn't just win it; the NBA would rename it after him.
Without any real wholesale changes to their offensive and defensive system, the Memphis Grizzlies own the league's third-best record. Super quietly, they've put themselves within striking distance of the once-untouchable Golden State Warriors. Just 3.5 games separate them and the Association's best team since Michael Jordan's 1995-96 Bulls.
Gasol is at the center of it all. His usage rate has exploded, and he's responded with a career-high 18.3 points per game to go along with 8.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.7 blocks. The last player to reach those benchmarks while posting a true shooting percentage better than .560 was Tim Duncan in 2002-03. He won the MVP award that year.
The absence of MVP post presences over the last decade or so is Gasol's best case yet. Guards, stretch forwards and high-scoring wings have dominated the winner's circle since 2003-04, when Kevin Garnett earned MVP honors.
As it stands, Gasol is the ideal modern-day big man—defensively apt and mobile, with the court vision of a point guard and a jump shot. That he headlines the Association's third-best team while manning a 5-spot often reserved for specialists only strengthens his standing.
In essence, Gasol is helping reinvent—and therefore rejuvenate—the center position. Few things are more valuable.
Why He Won't Win: Memphis' net rating with and without him remains virtually unchanged, and his stats pop balloons, not eyes. Also, only two MVP winners since 1979 have averaged under 20 points per game: Steve Nash and Steve Nash.
Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans
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Should the NBA ever turn this into an MVA (Most Valuable Alien) contest, Anthony Davis will have no competition. For now, it's him versus a bunch of Earthlings.
And yet, even against actual competition, Davis frequently looks like a future runaway candidate, if not an immediate favorite. He's on pace to join Wilt Chamberlain, James and Jordan as just the fourth player to notch a player efficiency rating north of 31, and his per-game stat lines are the stuff of space travelers.
Three players have maintained averages topping 23 points, 10 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 2.5 blocks for an entire season: Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Davis is set to become the fourth, at the age of 21, two years before the youngest of his counterparts (Olajuwon) surpassed those touchstones.
There is no better way to define—or, rather, attempt to quantify—Davis' value to the New Orleans Pelicans than by looking at his on- and off-court splits. They say everything:
| 1,692 | 107.8 | 5 | 103.3 | 15 | 4.5 | 6 | |
| 958 | 101.2 | 22 | 109.6 | 30 | -8.4 | 27 |
Simplifying this even further, when Davis is playing, the Pelicans are net-rating clones of the Portland Trail Blazers and Grizzlies—title contenders. When he steps off, they're worse than the Los Angeles Lakers—dungeon-dwellers.
Do players get any more valuable? We could say yes, but we'd be lying.
Why He Won't Win: The Pelicans aren't good enough. Players from lottery teams win MVP awards about as often as vampires eat salads.
Davis himself is also on pace to miss too many games. Since 1979, only one MVP winner has sat for more than seven contests: Allen Iverson (2000-01). Davis has already missed eight and is now tending to a shoulder injury, the team announced Sunday.
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
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Curry's MVP case is approaching invincible.
Everything about his performance amid the Warriors' world-beating season makes him a leading contender. As Diamond Leung wrote for the San Jose Mercury News ahead of the All-Star break:
"Already a top player, Curry has displayed an all-around brilliance this year that makes him a legitimate candidate to become the first Warrior to win the award since 1960, when Wilt Chamberlain played for the franchise in Philadelphia. ...
That the Warriors have a league-leading 42-9 record helps Curry's MVP chances. No player has won the award without his team winning a division or conference title since Michael Jordan in 1988.
"
This season has validated Curry as a complete player. He is neither strictly a shooter nor a scorer. Yeah, he does a lot of both. He's averaging 23.5 points and 7.5 assists while shooting 40 percent or better from deep for the second time. Only Larry Bird has ever done that even once.
But Curry leads the league in steals (2.2) and is functioning as the starting point man on the NBA's best defensive team. Opponents are also shooting just 38.9 percent when he's guarding them.
Any doubts that the Warriors' superiority could somehow work against Curry (see: James' 2010-11 star-stuffed Miami Heat) were quelled Sunday night, when he was out of action against the Indiana Pacers—the same Indiana Pacers who have 20 fewer wins than Golden State.
The Warriors lost.
Pump the brakes on panicked hysteria, though. Said Curry, per the San Francisco Chronicle's Rusty Simmons: "I'll be fine."
Good thing too. This was only a one-game sample size, but the Warriors need Curry. In the 828 minutes they've played without him, the Warriors are outscoring opponents by a team-low 0.4 points per 100 possessions. The ninth-seeded Phoenix Suns have a better net rating (1.7).
Which makes Curry's MVP case simple: He's the one player the NBA's best team cannot lose.
Why He Won't Win: Harden eats master's degrees in MVP-ing for pre-meal snacks.
Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
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Oh, yeah. Westbrook is here too.
If Oklahoma City snags the Western Conference's No. 8 playoff seed, we won't be looking at Durant. He'll be a pivotal part of the Thunder's midseason turnaround, but it's Westbrook who is carrying the Thunder on a more consistent basis.
Durant has missed more games this season (29) than his previous seven combined (16). Though Westbrook has missed time himself (14 games), he's been a team-carrying superhuman when on the floor—equal parts raw emotion and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
En route to posting the 10th-highest PER of any guard in NBA history, Westbrook is averaging 26.1 points, 8.0 assists, 6.4 rebounds, and 2.1 steals per game. The list of other NBA players who have reached those statistical touchstones is lengthy, so bear with me as we slog through it:
- Michael Jordan
Individual success in mind, the profound impact Westbrook has on the Thunder is truly astounding. His usage rate is the highest it's ever been, yet his true shooting percentage remains virtually unchanged. Oklahoma City's net rating is also 5.5 points better than its average with him on the floor. By comparison, the team is five points better with Durant.
"The data indicates that when removing either Durant or Westbrook from the floor," writes Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes, "the Thunder have been better with Westbrook flying solo than they've been when KD plays without his point guard."
Basically, Westbrook is to the Thunder this season what Durant was to them last season, when he brought home MVP honors. So yes, he belongs here.
Why He Won't Win: For the same reason Davis won't win—he's missed too much time. There's also the chance voters discriminate against his Marshawn Lynch-like interviews and Yosemite Sam-esque short fuse.
LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
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If not for the Cleveland Cavaliers' midseason volte-face, James wouldn't be here.
Indeed, there was a point when the Cavaliers looked like a fantastic failure—39 games into the season, to be exact. They were 19-20 and fading fast.
Then LeBron James happened.
Never before has two weeks of rest and relaxation been more valuable. Landing Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert helped, but it's been a refreshed James who has fueled the Cavaliers' emergence as title contenders—quietly, no less.
Although Cleveland's 180 has commanded ample attention, James' season has flown under the radar, if that's even possible. He ranks fifth in PER, 14th in win shares (despite missing a career-high 10 contests) and is destroying stat lines again.
Assuming his numbers hold, this will be the seventh time James averages at least 25 points, 5.5 rebounds, seven assists and 1.5 steals. No other player in league history has done this more than once.
While this almost goes without saying, James is the Cavaliers' lifeline. They're just 2-8 in his absence, and the impact he has on their performance would make Davis proud:
| 1,702 | 111.6 | 1 | 102.4 | 14 | 9.2 | 2 | |
| 1,039 | 100.6 | 23 | 108.1 | 28 | -7.5 | 27 |
Such swings this deep into the season leave little to question. The Cavaliers are flush with talent and just three games off the Eastern Conference's No. 2 seed, but they would be nothing and nowhere without James, the four-time MVP who remains as indispensable as ever.
Why He Won't Win: Other players—specifically Curry and Harden—will be deemed stronger contenders. But there's also an element of voter fatigue. James is here so often, his greatness, his value, is routine. People tire of honoring it.
Playing on a superteam hurts just as much, kind of like it did in 2010-11, his first with the Heat, when Derrick Rose won. With so much talent around James, he's supposed to be doing exactly what he's doing.
Presumed excellence is, in this way, James' curse.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com and are accurate leading into games for Feb. 23, 2015, unless otherwise noted.
