Good example of how bad PENS wants this for him. Like, bad. The award should be renamed the MEN. Most Exploitable Narrative.
I wonder how accurate that is over the years. I wonder if that model weighs "team success" heavy (which MVP voters have used in the past) but THIS YEAR that model might be smashed by "social media narrative", something that model can't calculate.
These aren't even the right numbers...ESPN only added his points to the number...final number was 4,554...Harden beat the record.
If you want to tweet at the ESPN stats guy, have at it. Appears HIS stats and NBA.com stats are different. Where is Morey and his stats cronies to chime in?
media conspiracy. New York Times picks the Rockets to win in four. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/sports/nba-playoffs-schedule-preview.html permalink: https://nyti.ms/2pak8UU No. 3 Houston Rockets (55-27) vs. No. 6 Oklahoma City Thunder (47-35) Game 1: 9 p.m. Eastern, Sunday on TNT The story lines between James Harden and Russell Westbrook are endless. A pair of reckless and talented guards, linked forever through their shared time in Oklahoma City, and pitted against each other in a hectic race for M.V.P., they are perhaps the two players in the N.B.A. most vital to their teams’ success and they will undoubtedly put on a show in this series since neither will bother playing much defense. With the stars canceling each other out, this series comes down to teammates and coaching, and that gives a distinct advantage to the Rockets, a squad reworked into something beautiful by Coach Mike D’Antoni. Free of the headaches of New York and Los Angeles, D’Antoni got back to what he does best: Crafting thrilling offenses out of versatile players and allowing for almost unfathomable risk to set his team up for maximum reward. If Houston’s shooters go cold this could be a series, but that is a rather huge if. Pick: Rockets in four
I watched this too. Tony and Pablo both thought Harden should be MVP, but they think Westbrook will win. It was an interesting conversation. They also said that Harden has the most pressure to win in the first round and that's not fair.
List of PTI/Around the Horn panelists and who they voted for: JA Adande- Westbrook (has official vote) Frank Isola- Westbrook (has official vote) Mike Wilbon- Westbrook (has official vote) Ramona Shelbourne- Westbrook (unconfirmed whether she has an official vote) Pablo Torre- Harden (doesn't have vote) Tony Kornheiser- Harden (doesn't have vote) Israel Gutierrez- Harden (doesn't have vote) Jackie MacMullan*- Harden (unconfirmed whether she has an official vote) So basically if you work for ESPN you were given a vote, unless you were gonna vote Harden. MEDIA CONSPIRACY!!!!
