Why Harden deserves the MVP

He's only rested against scrub opponents. When the Spurs rested him against a healthy Memphis team, Memphis dominated them.

 

Historically, the answer for MVP has almost always been the person who added most value to their team. This is pretty easily measurable via the EWA (estimated wins added) or VA (value added) stat which are pretty much collinear. These stats are useful because they put a lot of weight into durability, playing heavy minutes, and having your team basically depend upon you the most.

Over the past 10-20 years, the person who led in the EWA stat usually won MVP. However, in years where the person who led did NOT win, it has been because someone else very close to him in the EWA ranks was the leader of a team that did substantially better in the standings*. Because team performance in the form of wins is a trump card: you pretty much are disqualified if the other guy next to you in EWA plays for a team that has at least ten more wins than your team, or if your team is outside the top four seeds in your conference. Top four seed seems to be the benchmark.

So if I were you, I'd try to make the argument that it really is a two horse race between Harden and WB because they've been the two guys who have played every game and put their teams on their backs. Then, between the two of them you choose Harden because of the top four seed rule. No need to make it too complicated.

*(Also, you may not win MVP even if you lead in EWA, if your name is Lebron James or Michael Jordan and people are tired of your dominance. Voter fatigue etc...)

 

Because he plays for the Houston Rockets

That's as objective as you'll get

 

That's in essence is what MVP2 in the table is doing. MVP3 is a combination of MVP1 and MVP2.

An even better approach would be to take multiple metrics out there for estimating WINS attributable to a player, average them, and plug that into the formula. I just based it on WINS based on RPM, but it's not precise since RPM is kind of hit or miss. I think it gets most players right, but it is best not to solely rely on it.

 

Between his own scoring and points created from assists, Harden is generating the most points per game of anyone in the league.

 

"Jazz C Rudy Gobert is a late scratch against the Thunder due to right leg soreness. Gobert took a James Harden knee to the shin during Wednesday’s win over the Rockets."

THIS is the reason why Harden is MVP. Most star players would rely on a scrub bench player to do their dirty work. But Harden does it himself to help secure the 3rd seed

 

Heard an interesting stat recently about the candidates team's net +/-...

Leonard +1.6
Harden +1.8
Westbrook +16
LeBron +18

I'm going off memory, so numbers might be a slight tad off.

 

There have been enough nba titles that a theoretical "contender" value is defunct, a value that takes into account conference seeding and overall seeding (i would expect the #1 conf and overall wins more than a #1 in conf but 4 overall) of the actual champions (or finalists, or even conference finalists) is more than plausible, i have no idea what the outcome would be, it might favour lebron or kawhi moreso.

 

You know the most BS part is Rockets has better records than Cavs but Lebron gets the advantage. Just because Lebron is in the weak east?

 

LeBron still has a pretty good case even if you ignore conferences and just rank all the teams by win/loss record, at least when using the RPM stat as a basis for determining how many wins the players are responsible for. But as I said above, there are other stats for determining how many wins should be attributed to a player, so considering those maybe overall Harden would have the edge.

On whether to account for conferences, I can see the argument both ways. If I'm being completely objective, playing in a weaker conference does add more value to your team since you have a higher chance of winning the championship (easier path to the Finals). It may not be "fair", but it still seems true.

 

This is the part I do not agree with you. Cavs would still be in the east without Lebron. It's not a value provided by Lebron.
Lebron has a handful of allstar and former allstars around him (Harden has 0), played against overall weaker competitions, and still has less wins and more loss than the Rockets. I do not see how Lebron holds the edge on that front.

 

MVP is about turns and punishing bad behavior and rewarding good behavior, see e.g. the Derrick Rose year. LeBron forfeited one of his turns because of bad behavior with "The Decision".

Harden needs to be rewarded for responding for a media pile on last year with a monster season. And it's his turn. LeBron is out of turns. Durant had his turn. Curry had his turn, twice. Westbrook can still have a turn next year, it's like when it was Barkley-Olajuwon-Robinson-Malone's turn back in the mid-late 90's, after Jordan had enough turns.

Give the man his turn, or else -- conspiracy. And I don't make such a charge lightly.

 

LOL WB is almost 10 wins less than lebron and almost 15 wins less than harden that's why you reward him with the highest score with plus 10 margin?

if your intent is to separate the east and west conf seeds, then your base should be 9 not 17

if you decide to use 17 as the base, you should deduct the league wide seed not conference seed

you should cut the middle part and simply reward the contenders (league wide not by conf)

Westbrook: 13.76 X 7 = 96.32
James: 13.45 X 13 = 174.85
Harden: 13.09 X 14 = 183.26
Leonard: 10.98 X 16 = 175.68

 

Where is John Wall in this poll?

if Kashi is there he needs to be there.

 

What's wrong with just using Win Shares? Harden leads the league.

 

There's no reason to limit it to one stat when it doesn't tell the whole picture and there are other stats available.

Just like using triple double count is a foolish metric for making the case for Russ..

 

Probably because you forgot to include MVP frontrunner JOHN WALL