As it stands, he and Harden would be battling for the MVP. I think in the end, as long as Harden keeps this stat line up and the W's keep piling up, he'll finally get it.
It's not even close. Harden is way ahead of WB in MVP votes. It's not even close. Harden is way better player than WB. Harden is a smooth and smart players that make his teammates better. WB...well...he is WB and he is why KD left for the Warriors. Compare to how Harden play versus how WB play and how the entire Warriors team play, now you know why KD had to leave
I agree in that Harden is a much better player, but I think the media still hates on Harden for his lack of defense, which they still bring up whenever MVP conversations are going on. They also like to bring up TO's, which doesn't make sense because both Harden and Westbrook lead the league in TO's.
You are criminally underrating Westbrook. If it wasn't for him, that Thunder team would be by far the worst in the league. It is insane to think that he is averaging almost 11 assists with sub par shooters and no second option to speak of offensively. Give Westbrook the shooters and spacing that Harden has this year, and the offense would look way better. That being said, I do agree that Harden is the better player than WB and definitely a better decision maker. But the margin between the two is not nearly as big as you make it seem.
I havent heard media diss on Harden's defense this year. Last year, yes, all day all the time. And he deserved to be dissed last year for his horrible defense because he didn't even try last year. He just took there and did the ole reach around. He didn't deny it either as he said he needed to rest on defense because he was playing too many minutes. He doesn't have that problem this year. Plus Curry won 2 MVP and he plays as much defense as Harden, which is not much. MVP will go to the guy with the best record and that clearly is going to be Harden's team. I would not be shocked if Rockets finish with the 2nd best record overall in the NBA with Harden and Mike D' running things now. No one can beat the Rockets now that everyone brought into Mike D's system and it's much more deadly than the Warriors. You can't beat this team because Rockets score 3 points for every 2 points you score. OKC will be in the 7th seed and get knocked out by the Rockets in the 1st round
WB is having the same type of year he had when KD was out and he was putting up tripble double every night and his team was losing. Harden had an incredible year last year also, stat was. But no one cared because he just held on to the ball and patted his stats and rested on defense, which is what WB is doing.
Figured it had to be Michael Adams on that "one Nuggets team". Maybe the most gimmick inflated stat season ever (and historically AWFUL defense). NO one gave that system and team any respect, they just put one big asterisk* on them lol.
Westbrook is a great player, but I feel like his play style currently will always put a ceiling on how good his teams can be. He plays for stats and doesn't really make his teammates better. The squad around him isn't great, but its not bad either. Before this year, many would have said OKC and HOU's supporting casts are equal, if not OKC's was better.
I agree with that for the most part. I do think he makes plays for his team that make his mates better. I'm pretty interested in how he'll age though. He doesn't seem all that crafty to me and you have to craft your game for it to work when you slow down. Time will tell for all of that. But back to the OP, I'm really impressed. Though the NBA voters might not be so impressed, even if he keeps the tripdub all year. Oscar Robertson average a triple double during the 61-62 season, but Bill Russell won the MVP with 18.9 pts and 23.6 rebounds on a 60 win team. Oscar's Cincinnati Royals went 43-37. Rockets are on pace to break 60 wins, OKC 47. The Royals probably would have won 45 or so if they played 82 games. Booyah! Harden has a chance at MVP if history matters. ... there were 9 teams in 61.. so they played each team 8 times. Ouch. You'd know you're opponents very well. Almost like teammates.
And u are criminally underrating the importance of usage rate. If the thunder have 24 assists total in a game, about 17 will come from westbrook since he has the ball in his hands for all the time. Look at the numbers. Harden is literally dominating him in every caregorie except for rebounding. He even has more steals than him this month (harden 2.4, WB 1.4 - dunno bout the season steals). And honestly people underrate the thunder team around WB so hard. Replace harden wirh russ on our team and we are like 16-11 at best. People start to act like WB is surrounded by scrubs and harden by all-stars lol.
If you swap Westbrook and Harden the records would swap too. Westbrook is fun to watch and can lead to some success but Harden is basically Lebron-lite. His style of play translates to Ws. Very few players in the league who can put up stats and put up Ws. Westbrook is basically on a season long Kobe run. Knows he won't win a chip so might as well pad the stats as much as possible. Still impressive as hell.
No but he did score 81. It's conceivable that Russ has a game this season where he scores 70+. Westbrook fans coming out right now saying Harden has more help but Ryno and Gordon were wasting away in NOLA. All of the sudden they're great players? Russ makes serviceable players good. Harden is making serviceable players great. Russ is a giant asteroid demolishing most anything in its way. Harden is a sun affecting everything in its gravitational field.
Fat Lever averaged 19ppg, 9rpg, 7.5apg, 2.5spg and only 2topg for 4 straight seasons as a 6'3 shooting guard with only 21% USG. I'm sure if Lever played today at PG, he'd be able to do the same thing(other than scoring 30.well...with 25 shots maybe). Magic obviously could have. LeBron. MJ. Bird? Wade maybe. Drexler probably. Jason Kidd for sure. Harden maybe(I think he'd always fall short bc hes too lazy for those extra rebounds he'd need). All probably could with a 41.3% USG and a focus on getting a triple double Still....very impressive. Yes, he is clearly stat padding, but so did Oscar. Only thing is Oscar played in a league with 8 teams only and they sucked. OKC is pretty good with Westbrook doing it all, though probably first round fodder or 2nd round at best. Let him pad his stats for the next couple of years and then he can go join a superstar and contend for championships. Like it's been mentioned. The league has been around for a long time. There have been ton of players who've had the opportunity to stat pad on weak rosters. The question will be if he can keep up the pace. MJ was averaging a triple double through like 24 games as a point guard in 89-90 with far less usage and much higher efficiency than RW, but MJ didn't like it. Magic had plenty of opportunities to get 10rpg and average a triple double(though it's def. harder when you've got Kareem and other bigs dominating the boards, but Bird averaged 10+rpg with a dominant front line.)
What a great post! Everyone said "Ryan Anderson heavily overpaid!" Eric Gordon was labeled as a done player good for 15 points on a bad team. While people were talking if Steven Adams was becoming one of the best centers in the league, oladipo is probably a future all-star. Almost everyone ranked the Thunder higher than the Rockets due to their better roster. Rockets are winning and now all of a sudden the Rockets roster is great and the Thunder roster is bad as hell. You know... just wait. If Harden doesn't get the MVP Award you might aswell stop watching at individual achievements since they are bs anyway.
RW is averaging a triple double! I think the question is really who would you prefer to have on your team: Harden or RW? Well, it's a Rocket's board, so... But it would be silly to act like RW isn't doing something phenomenal here. He's 6'3" and averaging over 10 rebs! He's had to adjust to losing a top 3 player on his team (and Ibaka, too).
C'mon, NOLA did not have a great play maker, and Gordon has always been injured. Harden fans no need to be defensive (no pun intended). I'd take Harden over Westbrook if I had to choose. But you don't have to down play Westbrook's accomplishment just to prop up your player.
His scoring is unimpressive given the volume of shots he takes (although maybe he could be more efficient if he had more shooters around him), and his assist numbers are of debatable value given his TOs (last I checked, even more than Harden while averaging fewer assists)... ... But overall, the amount he's doing for that team is still pretty incredible. I didn't think he had it in him after seeing how much the team struggled back in 2015 when Durant went down. And as far as box score stats go, those rebounding numbers are straight crazy. Even if you're just trying to "pad stats" (and I don't think it's that simple), you have to have some talent to grab that many boards as a 6'3" PG...
