No one says he isn’t capable of it, but the bottom line is that he does not regularly put up better numbers than the rest of the league any more. Lebron is #2 right now but there is no argument that can be made for him over harden right now.
If LeBron leads the Cavs to a #1 seed and Harden doesn’t, and if his individual play is on par with Harden’s — does he deserve MVP? How much should seeding vs win total play a role? I argued last year that value added to a team should account for playoff seeding — since that is one of the primary goals of a regular season. But then, that also disadvantages great players on teams in a stronger conference.
As of today, the West is 70-74 against the East. Will see how this turns out at the end of year, though. Pretty much all recent years, the West have been meaningfully better than the East in W-L.
I mean it's true, if he wanted to post other worldly numbers every single year he could. He just hasn't had to and doesn't have the Kobe Bryant ballhog mentality. He understands that with winning a championship comes unselfishness and being able to rely on your teammates.
