James Harden is gonna get screwed over again in MVP Voting

I just wonder what's going to happen next year. Like...he's going to do this all over again. He's going to continue to average triple doubles. Is the media going to go berserk over it all over again?

 

supporting cast was never brought up when curry won mvp over harden with a MUCH better supporting cast but now it's a topic of discussion.

people just keep grasping at straws to discredit harden and prop up westbrook.

 

Anyone have the "advanced stats" article on espn?

 

Yeah, Harden winning the MVP award would help us a lot in free agency, and free agency is really the most important thing for this franchise right now. We need another star next to Harden before we can even think about championships.

If Harden were to win the MVP award, then there'd be nothing left for him to worry about from an individual standpoint. He's won 6MOY, he's made all star teams, he's been All-NBA...

 

I'll acknowledge that Harden has a better supporting cast (at least offensively), but at the end of the day, this team is still just Harden and a bunch of role players. The media is acting like Harden is a part of some Big 3. Harden is carrying a bunch of role players to the same record that OKC had last year when Westbrook was playing with KD and Ibaka.

 

Beard recognize Beard!

 

Spoiler: MVP Race

 

No way in hell are the Rockets players or Harden contriving toward Harden's stats. Harden gets his through normal flow of a game. Harden's bigs don't willingly give up boards. Harden doesn't shoot 30+ times a game. Harden creates offense for the team for the duration of the game while WB isos his team right after he gets the triple double. And since you insulted me first without merit, I have to say... you're clearly the ignorant one and my post proves it.

 

Missing W-L record

 

@knote32

http://www.espn.com/nba/insider/sto...rook-harden-lebron-kawhi-nba-mvp-best-metrics

tldr; Has Westbrook as MVP, followed by LeBron, Harden, Kawhi.

Spoiler

Russell Westbrook or James Harden? Or, alternatively, LeBron James or Kawhi Leonard?

From win shares to RPM, NBA player value metrics were designed to help inform our discussion about awards such as this year's fascinating MVP race. Yet it can be tricky to navigate the alphabet soup of various metrics to determine what advanced stats really tell us about the players involved.

Let's take a look at how I would rank the top MVP candidates, based on five important metrics:

VORP (Basketball-Reference.com)

Value Over Replacement Player
Player BPM | VORP
Russell Westbrook 15.3 | 11.6
James Harden 10.1 | 8.4
LeBron James 8.2 | 6.8
Kawhi Leonard 8.0 | 6.0

Historical context: Westbrook's plus-15.3 box plus-minus (BPM) is far and away the best since 1973-74, the first year for which the stat is calculated. LeBron James' 2008-09 season is next at plus-13.0, and there's a larger gap between Westbrook and James than there is between the second and 14th-best season all time.

Based on BPM, Westbrook is on pace for 12.4 VORP, which would surpass Michael Jordan's record of 12.0 in 1988-89.

What it means: Frankly, Westbrook's season has broken BPM, which is not quite as flattering to him as it sounds.

To improve the quality of the rating for most players, BPM uses interaction effects that multiply a player's assist percentage by his usage rate and his rebound percentage. As you might guess, Westbrook's season is off the charts historically by both measures.

Here's the leaderboard for assist percentage multiplied by usage rate back through 1977-78, the first season the NBA tracked player turnovers:

Assist rate and usage
Player | Season | Ast% | Usg% | Ast*Usg
Russell Westbrook 2016-17 | 56.9 | 41.8 | 2378
Russell Westbrook 2014-15 | 47.0 | 38.4 | 1805
James Harden 2016-17 | 50.8 | 34.4 | 1748
Russell Westbrook 2015-16 | 49.6 | 31.6 | 1567
Chris Paul 2008-09 | 54.5 | 27.5 | 1499

And here's assist percentage multiplied by rebound percentage:

Assist rate and rebound rate
Player | Season | Ast% | Reb% | Ast*Reb
Russell Westbrook | 2016-17 | 56.9 | 16.8 | 956
Russell Westbrook | 2015-16 49.6 | 12.4 | 615
James Harden | 2016-17 50.8 | 12.1 | 615
Magic Johnson | 1988-89 48.6 | 11.7 | 569
Kevin Garnett | 2004-05 27.1 | 20.3 | 550

Basically, Westbrook's season is way outside the sample on which BPM was trained to estimate player value, making its estimate of his value unreliable. BPM is treating Westbrook's versatility as exponentially better than anyone else's on record, and that's surely an exaggeration.

In short, Westbrook probably isn't having the greatest year in modern NBA history, just the one best designed to maximize BPM.

Win Shares (Basketball-Reference.com)

Win shares
Player | WS/48 | WS
James Harden | .245 | 14.2
Kawhi Leonard | .267 | 13.2
Russell Westbrook | .223 | 12.4
LeBron James | .217 | 12.1

Historical context: Win shares are relatively down on this year's crop of MVP candidates. Projecting out Harden's league-leading total would put him about 100th in NBA history. Win shares are available through the first season recognized by the NBA.

What it means: More than other value metrics, win shares tend to reward team success and defensive-minded bigs. (Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz is second to Harden with 13.9 win shares.) Those factors work against Westbrook, who ranks fifth in the league, by far his lowest ranking in any common value stat.

Win shares also don't factor in the key concept of replacement level, so they tend to reward minutes played, where Harden leads the league, more than productivity.

EWA (based on PER)

Estimated wins added
Player | PER | EWA
Russell Westbrook | 30.6 | 26.1
James Harden | 27.4 | 23.3
LeBron James | 26.9 | 21.8
Kawhi Leonard | 27.7 | 20.3

Historical context: Because Basketball-Reference.com has estimated PER back to 1951-52, we can use the formula for EWA, the wins-based version of PER, which is a per-minute stat, to come up with an all-time leaderboard. There are, however, a couple of caveats. Even more so than win shares, PER suffers from the limited player stats tracked before the 1970s, and creator John Hollinger set replacement level by position based on the player pool in the modern game, not historic norms.

All-time EWA
Player Season PER EWA
Wilt Chamberlain 1961-62 31.7 40.8
Wilt Chamberlain 1962-63 31.8 40.1
Wilt Chamberlain 1963-64 31.6 38.5
Michael Jordan 1987-88 31.7 34.9
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1971-72 29.9 34.4
Michael Jordan 1988-89 31.1 33.4
Michael Jordan 1989-90 31.2 32.9
Wilt Chamberlain 1965-66 28.3 32.9
David Robinson 1993-94 30.7 32.4
Wilt Chamberlain 1960-61 27.8 32.3
LeBron James 2008-09 31.7 32.2

Based on my calculations, Westbrook's projected 27.8 EWA would rank 37th in NBA history.

What it means: It's worth noting that PER tends to favor offense more than other value metrics, so it's remarkable from that standpoint that Leonard is fourth on a per-minute basis, just ahead of Harden, but behind Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis.

WARP

Wins above replacement player
Player | Win% | WARP
Russell Westbrook | .802 | 21.7
James Harden | .748 | 19.5
LeBron James | .719 | 17.1
Kawhi Leonard | .746 | 16.5

Historical context: Westbrook is on pace for 23.1 wins above replacement player, which would put him 28th since 1977-78 in my metric.

What it means: Westbrook padding his rebounding stats has been a key point of the MVP discussion. Because I calculate WARP, I can play around with the formula to see the value of Westbrook's rebounding. If Westbrook had 450 rebounds -- 5.8 per game, or 4.8 fewer than he's actually averaging -- he'd still be slightly ahead of Harden for first in the league in WARP.

At the same time, in part because of his rebounding, Westbrook rates as nearly as effective defensively as Leonard, and both Westbrook and Harden rate as above-average defenders based on their box-score stats. That's tough to justify.

RPM Wins

Real plus-minus
Player | RPM | Wins
LeBron James | 7.0 | 16.2
Russell Westbrook | 6.4 | 15.9
James Harden | 4.9 | 14.5
Kawhi Leonard | 6.2 | 12.8

Historical context: Because it requires play-by-play data, ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) has only been calculated back through the 2000-01 season. Even over that relatively short span, this year's totals are unexceptional. As of the most recent update last week, James was on pace for 18.3 RPM wins, which would rank 24th in that span. Westbrook was on pace for 17.7, which would rank 26th.

What it means: RPM combines the two typical methods for determining player value, using a BPM-like metric based on box-score stats for stability while also incorporating how teams perform with a player on and off the court, adjusted for teammates and opponents.

As a result, RPM is the metric of choice for James fans. Because the Cavaliers have struggled so much with James on the bench, being outscored by 8.0 points per 100 possessions without him, per NBA.com/Stats, James leads the league in RPM wins even though his box-score statistics have not been as strong as those of the other MVP contenders.

It's possible, though, that Westbrook will pass him for the top spot by the end of the season, particularly if James is rested down the stretch.

RPM is relatively low on Harden's candidacy because the Rockets haven't declined much with him on the bench; they still outscore opponents by 4.5 points per 100 possessions when Harden rests. In particular, Houston defends better without Harden, so his minus-1.7 defensive rating in RPM is the lowest among the MVP candidates by a wide margin. Westbrook rates minus-0.4 points per 100 possessions on defense, which is better than it sounds, because guards are typically worse defensively than frontcourt players.

Leonard's defensive RPM (plus-0.9) has declined dramatically from last year's plus-3.9 mark. As I've discussed previously, opponent 3-point shooting explains a lot of why the Spurs have defended better with Leonard on the bench. Subsequently, Bo Schwartz Madsen of Nylon Calculus found that this effect was larger for Leonard than anyone else in the league. If Leonard's defensive RPM was about 3.3 or better, he'd be leading the NBA in RPM wins, so there's a case to be made for him here, too.

It's intriguing that Westbrook and Harden have also seen opponents shoot 3s worse against their teams while they're on the bench, though the effect isn't nearly as large as with Leonard. Cavaliers opponents have shot better from 3 with James on the bench.

 

Spoiler

Summing up the MVP race by advanced stats

Depending on your metric of choice and assumptions, you can use advanced stats to make a case for any of the four leading contenders, so be careful to avoid cherry-picking in favor of your candidate.

After looking at all these stats, I find it useful to consider players in terms of their impact per 100 possessions at both ends of the court. BPM, RPM and WARP are all similar in terms of how they estimate this impact, and here's how the MVP candidates compare.

Offensive impact per 100 possessions
Player | RPM | BPM | WARP | Guess
Russell Westbrook | 10.6 | 6.8 | 8.9 | 9
James Harden | 8.6 | 6.7 | 7.9 | 8.5
LeBron James | 6.6 | 5.8 | 6.5 | 6.5
Kawhi Leonard | 6.4 | 5.3 | 6.2 | 6.3

Don't flatten the difference in skills by saying all four MVP candidates have been great offensively. It's clear by all three metrics that Harden and Westbrook have been the best offensive players because of how much offense they create for themselves and their teammates. Based on these, my best guess is that Westbrook has a small edge on Harden, with James and Leonard 2-3 points per 100 possessions behind.

Defensive impact per 100 possessions
Player | RPM | BPM | WARP | Guess
Kawhi Leonard | 0.9 | 1.5 | 2.1 | 2
LeBron James | 1.2 | 1.6 | 0.8 | 1
Russell Westbrook | -0.4 | 4.7 | 2.0 | -0.5
James Harden | -1.7 | 1.5 | 0.7 | -1.5

Defense is tougher to measure statistically, but I'm inclined to consider RPM the most telling metric for Harden and Westbrook, because my scouting suggests their box-score stats overvalue them defensively. Because of the 3-point effect, I think box-score stats actually do better with Leonard, and I'm a little more skeptical of James' regular-season defense than some of the metrics suggest.

Combining those two guesses with minutes played would yield the following wins above replacement based on my estimate of replacement level (about 2.6 points worse than league average per 100 possessions).

Wins above replacement
Player | Offense | Defense | Total | WAR
Russell Westbrook | 9.0 | -0.5 | 8.5 | 18.4
LeBron James | 6.5 | 1 | 7.5 | 17.2
James Harden | 8.5 | -1.5 | 7.0 | 16.9
Kawhi Leonard | 6.3 | 2 | 8.3 | 16.3

Even though Leonard rates second to Westbrook on a per-possession basis in my subjective evaluation, his lower minutes total relegates him to fourth in my MVP rankings. Meanwhile, Harden's defensive disadvantage relative to James drops him to third with Westbrook comfortably leading the other contenders in terms of wins above replacement.

To me, the most valuable player is the one who adds the most wins to his team's bottom line, and that's why after consulting the advanced stats Westbrook would be my MVP.

My top four:

1. Russell Westbrook
2. LeBron James
3. James Harden
4. Kawhi Leonard​

​

 

I've resigned myself to the fact that voters are going to buck 30+ years of tradition and award the MVP to Westbrook and his 6th-seeded team. This is what being a lifelong fan of Houston sports has taught me to do: expect disappointment and be pleasantly surprised if we're ever given anything else.

The revisionist history around the "supporting cast" argument upsets me to no end considering that almost all of these same voters predicted the Rockets would miss the playoffs or hover around the 8th seed. We've exceeded expectations in large part due to Harden's play (as has OKC due to Westbrook), but both teams were put down before the season by pundits. However, nobody expected us to be THIRD in the West and now that's suddenly being overlooked because our "supporting cast is better."

Westbrook's stat-padded 2.5 extra rebounds per game are going to seal this and it'll be the dumbest reactionary vote to the analytics age in NBA history.

I expect Hakeem-vs.-Robinson-level "that trophy belongs to me" play from Harden when we beat them in the first round.

 

What an annoying article. Thanks JR. I'm ready for a James Harden 50-15-15 game to put this thing away.

 

The media is trying waaaaaayyyyy to hard to find ways to justify Harden failing to be awarded MVP when there is a tried and true formula that's been out there for decades. The media is ignoring tried and true and instead inventing ways to achieve their desired result. Moral of the story, Harden has the right attitude, IDGAF he's just gonna ball and do his thing. We should do the same and say fack 'em.

For those with more time and looking for a release, spam the **** out of the media with this "tried-and-true vs inventing" viewpoint on their twitters, facebooks, etc... Remind them that they aren't creative, smart, deliberate, or fair. All they are actually doing and showing is they have a desired result first and are now building the justification for their pre-determined desired result.

 

Too little too late...

 

The only problem is we won't know the winner when they face off in the first round. The NBA ironically crapped all over what could've been a great storyline in the playoffs by delaying the announcement til after the Finals. Rockets vs Thunder is already ratings gold, but imagine how much more epic it could be if we knew the MVP winner during that series.

 

Actually many had the Thunder higher than us.

What they did not expect was for all of Westbrook's teammates to have down years. They consider this as a coincidence though and that Westbrook's dominating play has nothing to do with it...

As if just not the year before they were asking if Westbrook and Durant could ever play together. That all they really did was take turns...and Durant runs off to GSW and cites "Wanting to play basketball the right way..." as one of his reasons...

 

This is why the starters are among my favourite NBA shows, even if a bit gimmicky, they try to show as much objectivity as possible and at least have a bit of a discourse and hear out each others opinions - instead of just spouting dumb rhetoric with no logic and reason.

 

Over & under how many more times people are gonna post "I hope Harden doesn't get the MVP so he can go ham on WB like Olajuwon did on Robinson"?

 

even if (or when) the rockets beat the thunder in the playoffs after russ wins mvp, they'll use russ averaging 30 point triple doubles in losses as a reason why he deserved mvp like they've already been doing with russ 1-3 recrod vs the rockets this year.