James Harden currently has a close to 70% chance of winning NBA MVP according to an mvp tracker

I'd rather him win the finals mvp while holding a houston rockets nba championship trophy.

 

That's not true, Rockets were 2nd in the West that season. Russ OKC team was a 7th or 8th seed.

By the traditional standard of MVP going to most productive player on the team with the greater wins total, the decision was easy, Harden.

 

Ok. It didn't go traditional that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_NBA_season

If that's the season, Russell had them at 6th.
Cray year, Isaiah Thomas scored 28.9 ppg.

https://www.landofbasketball.com/year_by_year_stats/2016_2017_leaders_points_pg_rs.htm

 

Where are his other 5 MVP Awards?

Oh Right Media Valuable Player.

Thank goodness, No More Dumb NBA Award Ceremony. It is absolutely embarrassing to watch comedians make fun of James Harden defense when he is a Top MVP Candidate on the Award Show.

Making Fun of a Player the NBA should be Promoting a MVP, they are Devalueing the Player. The NBA is a Comic Show.

Shaqtin A Fool is the Top Reason.

 

The Rockets were a 3rd seed. A distant third, actually. The Thunder were a 6th seed.

 

Here are MVP Tracker predictions since 2015. I assume the model is trained to accurately select the top winner, not the runner ups. Probabilities from the model aren't available before 2015.

As you can see, it got it right 5 out 6 seasons. The one season it didn't get it right, it had the least confidence in its pick (Harden at 34%). This is what I meant when I said that the MVP selections are very predictable, just based on quantitative measurements (including team success).

2015:
Curry (37%)
Harden (24%)
CP3 (16%)
Actual Winner: Curry

2016:
Curry (70%)
Westbrook (7%)
Durant (7%)
Actual Winner: Curry

2017:
Harden (34%)
Durant (21%)
Westbrook (15%)
Actual Winner: Westbrook

2018:
Harden (68%)
LeBron (8%)
CP3 (7%)
Actual Winner: Harden

2019:
Giannis (48%)
Harden (29%)
Jokic (4%)
Actual Winner: Giannis

2020:
Giannis (51%)
LeBron (17%)
Harden (11%)
Actual Winner: Giannis

 

Embiid is freaking beasting it up in Philly. He should be up there to with James and Jokic

 

According to the tracker, he's now in the lead:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html

1. Embiid (36%)
2. Jokic (18%)
3. Harden (12%)

Hopefully he can stay healthy. It would be nice to see a center win the MVP again.

 

Watched a few Sixers games on league pass to see what the Simmons hype is about and I was blown away at how good Embiid looks this season.

 

Nah, it is Luka's turn.

DD

 

0%, if I have to predict

 

That still goes to my point.

3rd seed is clearly higher than 6th.

 

Age of the traditional center is dead.

 

2015 with Curry at 37% was just as weak a prediction as 2017.

 

Unless you're Jokic or Dream, post moves are boring to watch for most centers in the league.

 

Guard play is objectively more exciting than big man play as a standard.

 

3rd seed is higher than 6th seed, yes. But the significance of that is diminished when both teams are still WAY behind the number 1 and number 2 seeds (Warriors and Spurs). 55 wins, in a year when teams in the same conference got 67 wins and 61 wins, simply won't register that much for voters. That's why Westbrook was still a viable candidate. If the Rockets win total was closer to 60, Westbrook's smallish edge in individual box score stats would very likely not have been enough to best Harden's qualifications that year in the eyes of most voters.

That's not to say Harden didn't have a better case. If I'm not mistaken, I believe I said as much back then. It's just not as clear-cut as other MVP races in the past several years.

 

Bro there is no justifying his MVP, he didnt deserve it, end of story. Harden had both Critiera fit for MVP.

 

Thankfully you have no vote

 

To be clear, I'm not debating who's most deserving or justified. This is about how predictable an MVP race is according to quantifiable metrics.