Westbrook's on/off numbers are also misleading because OKC has one of the biggest gap between their starting five and bench unit, whereas Houston actually starts inferior players over much better players (Nene, Lou, Gordon >>> Capela, Ryan, and Ariza), to take advantage of the second-unit match-up. This is actually very smart thing to do as a team, but will make Harden's on/off numbers look worse in comparison.
From what I can see, OKC is lost without Westbrook - not just on offense but on defense too. He is such a ferocious player. I was really impressed with his game this series - more so than I have been in the past. He's taken things to another level. As a fan of basketball, I can understand why Westbrook is seen as the MVP. There's no shame is praising a player on the opposing team. Anyway, at least now we can stop talking about Westbrook - how sweet it is!
Kawhi has 54 wins this season, which is the same as what Harden has, and Harden has much better stats, so I think it's very clear who deserves the MVP more. I mean, Spurs are 7-1 without Kawhi this season, you can't credit the wins to him when he wasn't even on the floor.
If we go by that line of reasoning, Harden is the least impactful player among those three according to RPM.
If you take Lillard out of the TrailBlazers, then the GSW sweep them, and double the winning margins. It's no contest that Lillard is MVP.
I think Harden deserved it by making his whole team so much better and in such creative fashion. I don't have a problem with people thinking Westbrook deserved it. He had an incredible season. I wish they could share it but I think the writing's on the wall about that. I think D'Antoni and Morey deserve top honors too and I think we have the 6th man. But I'd much rather be in the second round than have any regular season award.
Did Harden make his team better or did Morey? Harden may have been the same player last year yet his team was disastrous and won 41 games. This season are we to believe that Harden dramatically changed his approach? Or did Morey just bring in better players and a better coach? I think it's tough to argue that Morey deserves EOTY, D'Antoni is COY, and Gordon is 6MOY while also saying Harden won all of those awards for them. Especially when stats tell us that those guys without Harden are balling.
Whatever. This topic is dead to me. WB can have his consolation award. I'd rather be advancing in the playoffs anyway, and I'm sure Westbrook would as well based on his reaction tonight.
I think it's obvious that Harden, D'Antoni, and Morey had a serendipitous, common vision and those three, along with Alexander and the rest of the team, have worked together to achieve it. I don't think any one of them succeeds without the other two.
You should hear this guy Ben Maller on Fox Sports. Absolutely trashed RW, called Reggie Miller Rw's roommate, etc. absolutely hilarious.
It's really going to be hard for harden to win any MVP trophy in the future when your are one of the most hated athletes in sports, I bet you guys if westbrook wasn't having that season, the media would've final away to give it to other candidate (Leonard, LeBron....)
I'll take being hated by the media than being hated by my NBA peers (Westbrook) there's a reason why durant left. let him have his MVP I'll take NBA wins and players that want to play with us, hence us scoring 47 points from our bench and OKC scoring about 19
I think its pretty clear why Durant left. He went to a team with 3 elite shooters lol. Its like a girl breaking up with his playboy bf and then marrying a 40 yr old virgin. KD got fed up so much with WB bricking he over compensated. If we didnt have such a crappy season last year and had the MDA system already in place I think KD would've signed with us instead.
If Harden had played like Westbrook (taking 35 shots a game) we might be down in this series. If Westbrook played like Harden in games 3 and 4, they would not be on summer break right now. I seriously can not believe how blatantly obvious it is that Westbrook lost this series due to ego. When he was playing a balance of scoring and passing, they were killing us even with Harden on the floor. He gave us this series on a platter. And yes Westbrook, I am trying to split you up. Your teammates did everything they could to win more and it was enough, you are the one who screwed them out of it by shooting too much. However, I suspect part of it is because Donovan is not particularly good at designing an offense like MDA.
Adam is the more valuable player for the Thunder than WB. If you take Adam out, that team might not even make the playoff. p.s. If you look at the simple +/- that ESPN and TNT kept on mentioning, WB was +15 for the series vs +16 for Adam, who played a lot less minutes than WB (oh and Harden was +19 for the series).
