Harden MVP watch 2018

Harden is MVP.

 

Elvin Hayes received our first MVP vote ever in 1971-72. Who gave him the vote is a part of the darkverse.

 

I have a group of friends that are from all over the country. In fact, I'm the only one that was born and raised in Houston in this particular group. Whenever they want to discuss MVP, they claim I "stifle discussion" by not being willing to include Anthony Davis and LeBron in the conversation. If (and when) Harden is voted unanimously, I'm going to spam the **** out of that group text to the point where they'll probably have to block me. CAN'T WAIT.

 

Even Lillard says Harden is MVP:

 

He should be collecting his 2nd MVP. They gave it to the most overrated player in the NBA.

 

SAS said something I agreed with for a change. **** that Player's Association ceremony bullshit. When Harden gets his MVP trophy, it should be during the playoffs.

 

MVP is such a lock for Harden, they are arguing about who is #2. I'm serious. I'm watching The Jump right now. (Stephen Jackson thinks Lebron is a close second LMAO)

They are disappointed because there hasn't been enough discussion about MVP.

The new discussion is: Harden is the MVP, but is he the best in the league right now.

 

even if TC will be half empty when he’s being presented his award in front of the home fans, it’s still something that needs to happen...fck that awards show

 

Nate Duncan had Harden as his 2nd best player in the NBA and said he’d think about putting him at #1 heading into next season if Harden has a great playoffs...I’ve always viewed him as a subtle Harden hater so that was surprising

ESPN and all these other shows should thank Harden for providing them with so much content the past few years with how much he challenged Steph and Russ for the award

 

The discussion should now be: "Will Harden be unanimous?"

Glad the vote results are PUBLIC. We'll see which media members will place someone other than Harden with a "1st place" vote.

 

Lillard showing his father some respect

 

It’s a shame the year a Rocket finally wins again and it’s pretty meaningless. The NBA took the award away from the fans and the players association should have fought that decision!

 

Making the votes public likely increases the chances of players getting unanimous selections. But I don’t think that’s a good thing. The fear of being publicly shamed for having an unpopular opinion shouldn’t influence the voting.

Harden winning by unanimous selection versus winning according to only 95% of the voters doesn’t change anything.

 

It also promotes research and analysis and strong belief into why you picked your candidate.

I agree partly with your premise but I believe making it public promotes self awareness with ones decision.

 

Screen shotted it too so let me know if this coward takes it down at some point.

 

Grizzlies fan talking about how to make the NBA Finals?

LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

Lol and his counter argument to that is something like “im sure yall thank god every day that MJ played baseball”.

 

Will Harden join legendary MVP class?If James Harden is named MVP at the end of the season, he will join Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, Steph Curry, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only scoring champs to win MVP on 60-win teams.

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http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22883017/espn-forecast-james-harden-win-first-mvp-landslide

Some competitive elections aren't called until days after the polls close, while others see the confetti drop in the hotel ballroom well before the majority of ballots are counted. The race for the NBA's 2017-18 Most Valuable Player falls squarely in that second camp, with James Harden poised to run away with the award in a landslide.

Though MVP voters aren't furnished with any definitive criteria by the league, most consider some combination of statistical production, team excellence, a compelling narrative and, for some, novelty. Like Stephen Curry in 2016, Harden sweeps every category. He might not achieve Curry's feat of a unanimous vote, but all indications are he won't be far off.

With less than three weeks left in the season, we asked our ESPN Forecast panel to weigh in on the MVP race. Here are the results of our poll.

Who WILL win MVP?

Who WILL Win MVP?
PLAYER VOTE
James Harden 100%

The ESPN Forecast panel, which relies on the "wisdom of the crowd," decisively chose Harden as the likely winner. This makes sense, because Harden both excels in traditional box score categories (the league leader in points per game with 31.0, and third in assists with 8.7) and leads all players in real plus-minus wins (an estimate of the number of wins each player has contributed to his team), as well as player efficiency rating.

Optics also matter in the MVP race, especially late in the season, so signature performances like Harden's nationally televised 42-point outburst in Portland on Tuesday night, when the Rockets snapped the Trail Blazers' 13-game winning streak, help to pad the résumé.

Forecast voters predict a nip-and-tuck contest for second place, as LeBron James and Anthony Davis have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. The Cavs -- at least offensively, where the award is generally won -- have looked unstoppable, with LeBron posting a line of 31.4 points, 10.2 rebounds and 9.9 assists in the month of March. Davis' dominance has made the New Orleans Pelicans a feel-good story as they fend off a scrum of quality Western Conference teams for what increasingly appears to be a likely postseason berth.

Voting breakdown

We asked the ESPN Forecast panel to predict the three most likely players to win 2017-18 NBA MVP, with a first-place vote receiving five points, a second-place vote receiving three and a third-place vote receiving one.

PLAYER POINTS
James Harden 230
LeBron James 83
Anthony Davis 73
Damian Lillard 12
DeMar DeRozan 4
Giannis Antetokounmpo 2
Kevin Durant 2
Russell Westbrook 1

*Stephen Curry received two second-place votes and a third-place vote before his injury

Who SHOULD win MVP?

Who SHOULD Win MVP?
PLAYER VOTE
James Harden 89%
LeBron James 7%
Anthony Davis 4%

If there's any debate as to the most deserving candidate in 2018, the Forecast panel couldn't find one, as 89 percent of voters picked Harden as the ultimate winner. The remaining 11 percent split their votes between James and Davis.

This is a far cry from last season's three-way battle between Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Russell Westbrook, who ultimately won the award. That campaign featured pros and cons for each candidate, as voters grappled with competing factors, traditional vs. advanced stats, the value of defense and the question of whether a sub-elite team could rightfully produce an MVP.

The panel clearly believes Harden presents no such conflicts for voters. For those who hold tight to the you-get-one-player-for-one-game benchmark, a strong case still exists for James. But voters have demonstrated year after year they don't see the honor as one of lifetime achievement, but as an affirmation of a single season's body of work.

As enumerated above, all classifications of voters -- statheads, traditionalists, those inspired by a good story -- can claim Harden as their choice.​

 

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...bron-james-else-responsible-most-wins-2017-18

After closing out 2016-17 with 42 triple-doubles, Russell Westbrook helped revive the argument for individual impact over team value in MVP consideration. Westbrook was judged to be the NBA's top player in a year when his Oklahoma City Thunder were not in the conversation for the league's best team; the fact that OKC finished No. 6 in the Western Conference was viewed as a commendable enough achievement to award Westbrook the prize.

Theatrical game-winning performances and underdog feel-good stories that win our hearts (and votes) aside, who leads the MVP race this season?

Win probability added (WPA) can be used to answer the question of who among the main contenders should be taking home the MVP hardware. WPA measures the difference in win probability from play to play for every person involved in a play. Summing those values, we are able to evaluate who our most impactful players are for every game over the course of the 2017-18 season.

Let's take a look at the top performers based on this outlook on value:

(All stats and ranks are accurate through games of March 21.)

Best players, best teams

PLAYER, TEAM TOTAL WPA RANK TEAM BPI RANK CONF. BPI RANK
James Harden, Rockets 6th 1st 1st
Kevin Durant, Warriors 9th 2nd 2nd
Kyrie Irving, Celtics 12th 4th 2nd

It's no surprise the best player on the team with the best projected record, according to BPI, is an MVP candidate. James Harden is widely considered the front-runner in the MVP race, and it's because the team that GM Daryl Morey has put around Harden has allowed him to play to the best version of himself. While Chris Paul has certainly been an upgrade over Patrick Beverley on offense, Harden has still managed to post a career-high 36.2 percent usage rate this season. The trophy is his to lose.

The Rockets' chief rival in the Western Conference and NBA title races, the Golden State Warriors, have two MVP candidates to consider. Although Stephen Curry currently has one more MVP award in his trophy case, Kevin Durant edges him out as the most valuable player on the 2017-18 Warriors. Durant's versatility gives him a slight edge over Curry (who has played 51 games and suffered an MCL sprain on Friday), and the Warriors have relied more on Durant this season, increasing his minutes per game and usage rate from 2016-17. In return, Golden State has seen Durant increase his 3-point percentage to 43 percent, and his block percentage has increased by 11 percent.

Kyrie Irving had his wish to be the king of his own team fulfilled during the offseason, and he has taken advantage of that opportunity with the 2017-18 Boston Celtics. Irving has the Celtics positioned as the fourth-best team in the league according to BPI, doing so by accumulating the 12th-most WPA among all players. His usage rate this season represents a career- and team high. At 25 years old, Irving is the youngest guard in this conversation, and he might be a year away from serious MVP contention.

No 'I' in team ... but there are four in 'individual dominance'

PLAYER, TEAM TOTAL WPA RANK TEAM BPI RANK CONF. BPI RANK
LeBron James, Cavaliers 1st 15th 4th
Anthony Davis, Pelicans 2nd 13th 7th
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks 3rd 18th 8th

Step aside, iso coming through. LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Giannis Antetokounmpo all have one thing in common: The offensive efficiency of their team significantly decreases -- actually crumbles -- without their contributions. With the exception of Davis, much of this production is powered by players who truly perform on their own -- via isolations. According to Second Spectrum, James averages 13.7 isos per 100 possessions (second in the league) with Antetokounmpo fourth with 11.4.

Many of those who resist James' MVP candidacy do so because of the dysfunction surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the numbers also support those sentiments. To this point, the Cavs are performing 1.4 points better in their net rating with James off the court.

Even though hero ball isn't Davis' go-to style, his impact is apparent when noting the Pelicans lose 3.4 points from their offensive rating and allow 5.3 more points in their defensive rating with him off the floor, according to NBA Advanced Stats. Davis' value has been emphasized since DeMarcus Cousins went down with a season-ending left Achilles injury in January. With Cousins off the floor, Davis has a 32 percent usage rate, up 6 percentage points since the beginning of the season.

Bottom line: All about (how much you contribute to) the W's

The six players evaluated above -- James, Antetokounmpo, Davis, Harden, Durant and Irving -- are those first mentioned in any credible conversation about the MVP race. We understand the alarm you might be feeling right about now seeing Harden ranked sixth in WPA, behind Antetokounmpo, Davis and others. But there's at least one reason why WPA sees his value as lagging behind five other players, and (perhaps ironically) it is rooted in the Rockets' dominance.

One of the things WPA identifies is the win probability swings of critical plays, which it then attributes to the most impactful players on those trips. But because the Rockets win by 13 points on average, there are fewer chances for large swings or critical plays. Harden is putting together undeniably amazing numbers for a dominant team that doesn't need those numbers as much as some of Houston's contemporaries need their guys' numbers.

But it's wins that really matter, right? And if it's wins that really matter, how can you not give the MVP award to the player who has had the most responsibility for the team likely to end up with the most wins?

Because, according to WPA, Harden hasn't added as much value to those wins as one of his MVP rivals has to his team's wins.

According to our numbers, it's James who tops Harden in WPA for games his team has won:

PLAYER, TEAM WPA RANK IN WINS TOTAL WPA IN WINS
LeBron James, Cavaliers 1st 18.4
James Harden, Rockets 2nd 16.2
Anthony Davis, Pelicans 3rd 15.8

James leads the league in overall WPA in team wins, with field goals and assists accounting for roughly 80 percent of his overall WPA value. Harden is the leader in free throws per WPA, and Davis' primary contributions to his team's winning performances have been grabbing boards.

The difference among these three players comes down to only 2.6 game-clinching WPA points, which will have a chance to shift between now and when MVP voting closes at the end of the regular season.​