James Harden is gonna get screwed over again in MVP Voting

Ernie Johnson voting for Westbrook.

 

i just read that Jason Terry has contested more shots than Russell Westbrook has all season

 

Westbrook can have his mvp trophy sitting next to him on the couch watching the playoffs after they lose in 5 games to the Rockets in the first round.

 

Nate Duncan also spent a full day on twitter trying to defend Draymond kicking Harden in the head as "simple physics." I must conclude he is an idiot.

 

4

 

Man, I'm so over all this MVP talk. It's obvious that the media want Westbrook to win it and he will. They've been pushing for this since the beginning of the season. I just hope this motivates Harden to go beast mode in the playoffs and prove the media wrong.

 

if Westbrook does win, I'll get great satisfaction from Harden sending him home early in the playoffs

the MVP isn't the same if it comes with a 1st round exit, just ask Dirk

 

That's exactly where I'm at too.

It's a nice trophy....but the O'Brien trophy is nicer.

 

that was me with curry in 2015. the media hype train really gets in the way of me respecting those guys at the time. it definitely tests my objectivity...

 

At least Harden is our MVP

 

Real talk tho. Rockets fans should appreciate the hell out of harden. I know I do

 

Brian Windhorst has an MVP vote.

At 48:30, "Giannis will be my number 5 on the MVP ballot, and I will vote for him as Most Improved"

At 53:30, "The day the trade deadline went down, I wasn't in love with the Lou Williams trade...I'm biased (@Os Trigonum) , I covered the Raptors series a few years ago when they lost 4-0 to the Wizards, and I saw how he was completely neutralized in the playoffs by the way he plays."

At 59:34,
ZL: "Have you made your decision on MVP yet?"
BW: "No."
ZL: "Neither have I." (I guess Zach Lowe has an MVP vote too)
ZL: "Doug Collins and Rachel Nicholas bring up all the time that there should be co-MVPs. My problem with that is: 1. I think it's a cop-out. 2. It's not mathematically possible unless all the votes line up in such a way, it would be miraculous. And 3. It presumes that it's a two man race...I agree with the thought that you can pick Kawhi, LeBron, Russ, or Harden and you could defend your pick. Have you come down to it being either Westbrook or Harden?"
BW: "Yes I have. But 3 weeks ago when Tim Bontemps was doing that poll(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-favorite-for-nba-mvp/?utm_term=.bc5d28fd5432) Who did you vote for then?
ZL: "I don't believe that I voted. (joking) I'm not going to reveal my choices."
BW: "In that poll, I voted for Kawhi."
ZL: "Ok."
BW: "Rachael Nicholas has asked many players about who they though was MVP, a lot of them former players, they all believe it's Westbrook."
ZL: "First off, I don't think that's true of every single player. I've text players and they are not unanimously in favor of Westbrook. If anything, its an ex-player thing because they admire his bravado and his courage."
BW: "Ok maybe ex-players is a better way to put it."
ZL: "I think Westbrook is going to win, because ex-players are going on TV saying he should win and voting for anybody else is stupid."
BW: "Well, if somebody voted for John Wall or Giannis, would you think that would be outrageous?"
ZL: "Yes., but I think Giannis will get a lot of 5th place votes"

At 01:05:00,
ZL: "A lot has happened since Tim Bontemps poll. Harden has been in a slump and has a bad wrist. Westbrook had 2 insane 4th quarter comebacks and keeps posting triple-doubles.
BW: "The 57 point triple-double was amazing, even if it was in overtime."
ZL: "There's this idea that Harden is more efficient than Westbrook, but because of his recent slump, Harden is down to 44% FG and 34.4% from 3PT. I won't round down to 34% because then the Houston fans will say I'm hating...Westbrook is at 42.5% FG and 34.0% from 3PT. That difference is almost gone."
BW: "I reject the idea that Westbrook should win because he is averaging a triple-double."
ZL: "So you have smartly rejected a dumb idea. If you sort the stats differently, Harden is having just as historic of a season."
BW: "Harden will the first player ever to have a 25/25 season. Scoring 25 points a game and assisting 25 points a game."
ZL: "If you don't think Westbrook is stat padding his rebounds, you are blind-fully ignorant. If you vote for Westbrook, you shouldn't do it just because of the triple-double."
BW: "I agree with you, but I know people who will vote for him just because of the triple-double."

 

I'm surprised that Zach Lowe would use FG% instead of TS% when comparing Harden's efficiency to Westbrook's.

 

Zach Lowe defining efficiency by raw shooting percentage and ignoring Harden playing through injury. LOL.

I thought he was one of the smart ones. Oh well.

 

Him using FG% shocked me, I thought for sure that he would know not to judge efficiency off of that.

 

Harden media fans going down one by one. This last stretch where he has looked quite horrible coupled with WB's intense and sustained high level of play has swayed the media toward WB

 

At least both of these voters agree that voting for Westbrook just because of the triple-double is stupid.

 

I'm a little surprised that win-share% isn't used more to compare players vying for mvp.

 

Russ with another monster performance and clutch threes at the end there to win the game for OKC on the road.