First Take: Should James Harden be favored for a second straight MVP?

If the Rockets somehow end up as the first seed with Harden continuing to put up bonker numbers, there’s no way he won’t repeat as MVP. Right now, the dude is playing miles above his peers. In fact, this is some of the most dominant basketball the world has ever seen.

The dude has perfected that step back three which is unguardable to begin with. If he let him shoot it, he makes it at a good clip, if you contest it, he gets three throws. If you close out before the shot, he drives past you and either gets a layup, free throws, or an assist. The guy is absolutely unguardable. His handle on the ball is second only to maybe Kyrie Irving, his change of direction and speed with his strength is a borderline cheat code...and on top of all that he’s learning to control the tempo of the game.

We are watching the most unique all time great and as mind boggingly amazing he has been to this point, we can’t be sure if his play right now is the apex of his abilities.

 

These people chasing regular talkshow gigs and more TV time are pressured to spout whatever is popular. Unfortunately, "Harden plays ZERO defense"; "Harden is surrounded by an all-time great"; "Harden is boring to watch"; "Harden travels on every other move"; "Harden is a choker come playoff time"; "Irving makes his teammates better than Harden does" are all SUPER popular headlines. Popular headlines equals better ratings, thus the result is an audition video clip. Not surprised this is what we get when SAS and Max take their winter vacay. That's not to say that SAS doesn't perpetuate the "ZERO defense" mantra, but rather he says it literally the loudest whereas Max does it with a smug.

 

Most Valuable Player: Of course

Media's Valuable Player: Not a chance

 

Um. Yes he did (42)

His research is crap, but lets all get our facts right in our return arguments!!

 

Holy Sh-t. I don't even know where to start.. All the familiar tropes are there when Harden starts to insert himself into the MVP conversation:

• Harden plays no defense (isn't harden top 10 in steals??)
• Best player vs Most valuable player
• Harden isn't winning enough (4th place in the conference mere games behind 1st place)

Harden gets treated like he beats his wife. Richard Jefferson is a Lebron mole..

 

It's funny. To have a "debate" show you have to have choices. (This is why LeBron got thrown into things LATE last year with Harden. A FOIL was needed).

These fools should be THRILLED Harden is having the season he is having if for no other reason than to juxtapose it with Giannis to create lively debate.

 

Sadly, NY and LA media think they drive thought in this country and they are notoriously stupid, lazy, biased, and jealous. They don''t watch the games. If Harden was in LA and LBJ was in Houston they would be on Harden's nuts and calling LBJ a choker. Just fact. They always talked glowingly about LBJ because that was the narrative driven by NY and LA because ultimately they figured he would land there and he did and he telegraphed it for years. LBJ is an all-time great and deserving of the attention so it doesn't matter but Harden doesn't deserve the derision. The media hates him. Right now he should have at least 3 MVP trophies and probably 4. He is constantly doing the Dream work of going in the lab and putting in the work and coming out the Terminator hell bent on destruction. He still needs to work on turnovers and understanding when he is compromised on the court and how to mitigate the overuse and control himself better. Right now he has to be out there a lot of times. Players like Ben Simmons and Andrew Wiggins that get hyped to hell don't do **** to improve their weak games and it takes forever for people to finally hold them accountable. Westbrook hasn't changed and will do to Paul George what he did to Durant in the end. He knows he shouldn't shoot more than 15 times but he's got the disease. Westbrook will go on a mini-streak and have a few good shooting games and get comfortable again and then settle back in the same chucking routine for months. Rinse and repeat, we have seen it too many times.

 

Kawhi argument is a joke. Good stats, but nothing special. Kawhi already missed 9 games (7-2 record). Raptors currently have a worse winning % than they did last season. Really only has the "best player on best team narrative" (if Raptors wind up 1st seed)

 

Wow. Didn't even think about that @Deuce! When Harden and the Rockets were trash at the beginning of the season, the MVP debate was a boring one because everyone liked the choices. Now that Harden is, once again the clear front runner, the debate is spicy!! Scoville level 1,00,000,000 Ghost pepper hot!!

 

I'm just happy Harden was so overwhelmingly the obvious choice last year that even the very media that slanders him daily had to vote for him. If Harden was robbed again last year I would be much more livid with the state of this year's MVP race.

I'm cool that Harden's probably not going to win again. The media is never going to give it to him again, especially after the daily outrage he receives just for scoring a lot of points. Objectively, he should have at least two. But at least he got one. That's enough to at least ensure his legacy.

 

To be fair, steal doesn't tell the whole story of defense, Kawhi and Giannis are better defensively than Harden. Harden is just a slightly above average defender, but he is probably the best post defending guards in the league which is extremely valuable in our switching defense.

 

I don't know. The hate for Harden is so violent, I would imagine Harden's MVP's will be debated 100000% worse than Nash's MVP's despite his numbers.

Harden was left off the ALL NBA team in 2015 as an 8th seed despite having historic numbers at that time. #neverforget

They don't just hate Harden, they hate, hate him.

 

I think he did... like once lol.

Keep in mind too that Jefferson was an Arizona Wildcat while Harden went to ASU. I wonder if that bias is playing into Jefferson’s crappy take at all... I always wonder about the personal side of things.

 

Zach Lowe's quote before the season starts:

But last year's win felt like a collective shoulder shrug from voters: "Fine, fine. Maybe you should have won the year before. Your team won 65 games. We don't like watching you play, so please take the trophy and let's agree not to revisit this."

I don't like it, but I am afraid he is right.

 

THAT'S WHAT THEY TELL YOU WHEN THEY WANT TO DISCOUNT YOUR DEFENSE!!! Steals (and blocks) is the thing they point to in the stats when they want to tell a casual fan about defense.. Now all of a sudden steals don't tell the whole story..

Harden has a New York Times best selling encyclopedia on Post Defense. The best centers and forwards in the world can't score on James Harden in the post.. THAT'S DEFENSE! That counts!

 

"James Harden isn't even in the MVP conversation" - Richard Jefferson after Harden has just averaged 40ppg the last 10 games going 9-1.

 

Yes, and that narrative was nowhere to be seen when Westbrook won. Agree with you completely.

 

he only had 2 40 point games for his career...Harden got more than him in like 1 week

Who the hell is Richard Jefferson to try and diminish Harden by saying “anyone can score 40?”

 

From The Ringer today

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/1/2/18165028/nba-five-questions-new-year


From that perspective, the second horse in this race is clear.

You’ve probably seen the numbers, though they aren’t particularly believable. The Rockets are the hottest team of the past 10 games at 9-1, and James Harden is essentially the entire reason. He has more or less willed the team back into the top half of the playoff picture by himself, averaging a staggering 40.8 points (attempting 13.8 3-pointers per game on 41.3 percent shooting!), 6.8 rebounds, and 8.9 assists per game in that span. Harden is currently averaging 33.3 points per game on the season, which would be the highest single-season scoring average since Kobe Bryant’s 2005-06 Rambo season, wherein he dropped 35.4 points nightly.

For Harden to match Kobe’s numbers from that year, he’d have to average exactly 37 points over Houston’s remaining 46 games. To be honest, he might have to average that regardless. There is no updated timetable on Chris Paul’s return from his recurring left hamstring injury, and with an obscene amount of money invested in the 33-year-old point guard’s next three seasons, the Rockets won’t be rushing him back. All the more room for Harden to cement his MVP case the old-fashioned way.

 

scummy LOF’s ruined Harden’s reputation

Harden’s defense isn’t even bad, especially when u consider the burden he carries offensively

It’s been how many years, and idiots still think he plays zero D. I’m tired of this fake news.