[The Ringer-Bill Simmons]The Greatest, Best, and Most Historic NBA MVP Column Ever

"Remember when we came out of the 2016 playoffs raving about how much we liked Steven Adams, Enes Kanter, and Andre Roberson? Why didn’t they get any better? Why wasn’t Adams as devastating in OKC as the Capela-Nene-Harrell trio was for Houston? Why wasn’t Oladipo BETTER on a much better team? Why did they dump Ersan Ilyasova after only three games, and why wasn’t it a bigger deal when he thrived in Philly and Atlanta? Why such a wasted rookie year for Domantas Sabonis? Everyone acts like Russ is playing with the Washington Generals — he has two top-three lottery picks and three other lottery picks in their playing rotation. Kanter and Oladipo have near-max deals. Adams has a nine-figure deal coming. Ilyasova scored 15 a night on Philadelphia. Those guys sucked? If a superstar guarantees you 45 wins, then Westbrook dragged them to … 47 wins? What?"

Best exercpt in the article. Westbrook will win MVP, but he is not the MVP, because none of his teammates are better off now than they were at the start of the year.

You put Steven Adams and Victor Oladipo on the Rockets and they are unquestionably better than they are right now, and it is entirely because of the difference in mindsets between Harden and Westbrook. But then the argument would be "well Harden has Adams and Oladipo! Of course they're winning more. He has more help!" and you realize that the media shifts to whatever they want.

 

Id like to add to that. Not only is it because the mindsets of westbrook/harden but the skills/talents.

Westbrook is amazing but I think his skills/talente can only be played his way. Even if he does change his mindset. Russ biggest talent is his freaky athleticism

Hardens talents are different. His talents allow him to thrive in team ball easier than brook IMO

 

This is what is called journalistic integrity. Simmons has his own horse in the race in IT, yet he knows that Harden deserves it more. He could go the Michele Beadle route and pick the guy on his team. Refreshing.

 

It's clear why Harden deserves the MVP more than WB, but WB is more attractive to stupid people and people who only watch highlights.

 

Stop saying it the greatest, best, or closest MVP race ever. Westbrook is winning in a landslide. Itxs dumb to keep on making it seem like it's close. It's not. How is the Media gonna say it's so close when Westbrook wins 75 percent of the vote?

Edit: glad Simmons realizes in his article that it also isn't one of the best MVP races of all time. The best players are all essentially cut out of the race with 2 playing on the same team and the Cavs sucking.

 

I love reading the comments on any article that actually takes the time to break down the MVP race and not pick Westbrook. The argument is always yeah but triple double. It's a great way to weed out the idiots.

I also love how Mike Dantoni is now the greatest coach of all time and he creates a system that makes anyone flourish. Do people really believe this nonsense? Apparently Dantoni has been covertly running an elite offense for the last decade and Harden just learned how to play basketball when the Rockets hired him.

Credit to Dantoni for what he's doing here but wow revisionist history is hilarious.

 

Yup. Reading various arguments will always give you a good idea about their understanding of the game of basketball.

 

This is a solid article but it does feel a lot like the popular vote is going to be Westbrook. Most writers/NBA pundits are out there today touting Westbrook as the MVP. Generally, this is the type of chatter that influences votes. As much as I would like to think the votes of staff, writers, media, etc are all somewhat independent, they have showed a shocking amount of group think - especially now that their votes are visible to the public.

 

media conspiracy

 

The media members that have votes and cover multiple sports should apologize to Altuve and Watt

 

Was Dream robbed in 1993?

 

So glad Bill Simmons lost his HBO show, and is back doing what he does best. His columns are great.

 

Howard Beck
Matt Moore
Bill Simmons

Doing yeomans work on the Harden campaign.

 

It is refreshing to read intelligent basketball analysis. Bill Simmons The Book of Basketball was a fantastic read that if you haven't read, you should as soon as you can.

 

Simmons basically explained perfectly why Westbrook shouldn't win over Harden and then he gets attacked verbally in his own comment section by all the WB fans, most of who didn't even read the article.

Honestly wish race was already announced with Harden winning, then maybe all these WB fans can go kill themselves from the salt levels being too high.

 

That escalated quickly.

 

Westbrook's gonna win it, deal with it. I couldn't care any less since we're gonna beat them in the first round anyway.

 

lol @ comment "Harden is a system player" Why is it so easily forgotten that Harden's been carrying the Rockets like this for years lol...

 

Westbrook is a system player.

System:
SG, SF, PF, C: get out of the way
PG: chuck, chuck, chuck