Written by Tom Ziller at SB Nation.com
The midway point in the 2016-17 NBA season is closing in fast. For the most part, the campaign has gone according to predictions. But one of the league’s few pleasant surprises has also disrupted what would otherwise have been a coronation in the MVP race.
That’d be James Harden, whose Houston Rockets are lunging toward the top of the West under Mike D’Antoni. Harden, the MVP runner-up in 2014-15, has been fully unleashed as a point guard in D’Antoni’s spread pick-and-roll attack, and his numbers are just astounding. He’s currently No. 4 in scoring at 28.4 points per game and No. 1 in assists with 11.9. The Rockets are currently on pace to win 60 games. Their second-best player is either Patrick Beverley or Eric Gordon. You see why Harden is an alluring MVP candidate.
The expected MVP is Russell Westbrook, who is in fact putting together a year worthy of an MVP trophy. Westbrook leads the league in scoring at 30.9 points per game and is No. 2 in assists with 10.5. More notably, he’s averaging a triple-double: his 10.4 rebounds per game are good for 12th in the league. He has 16 triple-doubles on the season, which is already tied for the 11th-highest season total all time.
He might not catch Oscar Robertson’s record of 41, but he might be the first since Oscar to average a triple-double on the season. It’s just an incredible display of all-around greatness. It’s a hell of an MVP case all on its own, especially considering the Thunder are seven games above .500. (Despite losing Kevin Durant for nothing in free agency, OKC is only three games behind where they were a year ago.)
Harden has nine triple-doubles himself. No player outside of Westbrook and Harden has more than three this season. Harden’s averaging 8.2 rebounds per game this season, tops on the Rockets.
Once you determine that both are turning the ball over at an equally extraordinary rate, neither is playing highly effective defense, and the combined points and assists are roughly comparable, how do you determine who has been more valuable to their team? Is it Westbrook’s rebounds and triple-doubles? Is it Harden’s fatter win total?
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