Last year was a two-horse race for the league’s MVP, with Kevin Durant beating out the South Beach-laden LeBron James in his last season in Miami.
The only other possibility was New Orleans’ Anthony Davis, who was frequently referred to as “the future most dominant player in the league”.
But when KD took out the Maurice Podoloff trophy, nobody batted an eyelid, except maybe for Durant himself during his now-famous speech.
But this year? Durant has been a ghost, LeBron is going though his moving-home blues – the kind we usually get when looking through the pantry at our parents’ place – and a handful of up-and-comers are storming into MVP contention.
Listed below are the top contenders, in order of least likely to most.
Honorary mentions
Too injured to be considered
Anthony Davis, New Orleans
Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City
Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers
Too Spanish to be considered
Marc Gasol, Memphis
Pau Gasol, Chicago
Too boring to be considered
LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland (dependable big men are so 1995)
Jeff Teague, Atlanta
Paul Millsap, Atlanta
Pretty Much Anyone From, Atlanta
The top five
Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers
Somehow, CP3 has put together a quiet season while leading the Clips. Not “quiet” in the hasn’t-done-anything way, but “quiet” in the same-old-Chris-Paul way.
He’s averaging over 10 assists a game to go with his near-20 points, and with Blake Griffin away, he’s been carrying the scoring load for his squad. In a starting five featuring DeAndre Jordan and ‘The Original Neck Tat’ Matt Barnes, someone’s gotta do it, right?
And this is overlooking his tight D on younger, more athletic guards in the west.
Paul may be one of the most fundamentally sound players of his generation and for him to win an MVP at some stage seems fair. But while his best days certainly aren’t all behind him, he may have missed the MVP boat (Clipper?) with the armada of young talent working their way into the picture.
Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors
While Chris Paul rarely has an off-game, solidly racking up his 18-and-10, Steph Curry is the total opposite. CP3 won’t go for 50 any time soon, but there’s always a chance Steph will go off on an unsuspecting opponent.
It seems like every game Steph is making highlight reels – whether it’s his seemingly-ridiculous shot selection, his regular disembowelling of a poor defender with his freakish dribbling skills, or the sort of face that your nanna wants to pinch with all her might.
Curry slips above Paul due to the attention he and his Warriors are receiving – and rightfully so, given their dominant record. He’s the best player on the best team in the league and will surely score some MVP votes based on that fact alone.
James Harden, Houston Rockets
The Beard has well and truly made up for the absence of Dwight Howard for most of the season by taking over the Rockets – and maybe even the league. Sure, most of his points come from the foul line, where he’s converting 87 per cent of his five million attempts per game, but he’s a cold-blooded scorer and distributor who is making the Rockets a much-feared Western Conference opponent.
My favourite part about Harden? He is currently second in the league in scoring and still dishes out seven assists a game to the likes of Trevor Ariza (who is averaging double figures pretty much solely thanks to Harden), Patrick Beverley (who is playing professional basketball pretty much solely thanks to Harden), Corey Brewer (who spent the first few months of the season sucking at Minnesota – at Minnesota) and Josh Smith (currently making 31 per cent of his threes since the trade, which is about 35 percentage points above his career average).
LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
It seems that, for most of the season, LeBron and the Cavs have struggled. They limped to a 19-20 record, with several of those losses occurring in a 1-7 slump without James before their infamous bowling night, which worked out much better than when Andrew Bynum tried it.
And yet, despite Cleveland flying since mid-January and LeBron threatening to go 30-10-10 every night, it seems like LBJ is kind of coasting.
He’s probably the best player in the world, and there’s a part of me that feels sorry for the poor team who’ll bear his wrath once the Cavs drop a game or two in the playoffs and he gets nice and pissed off. However, in the meantime, his claim for MVP is being overwhelmed and overshadowed by somebody who is playing with that edge each night.
Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to like Russ. There’s the Kevin Durant fan in me who wants the world’s best scorer back in the league, but we won’t see his full range of skills with Russ also in the line-up.
There’s the part of me who thinks that every team has somebody who would dominate the game if given the keys to the team like Russ has.
And there’s also the part of me who heaps scorn on the sort of person who plays NBA 2K on its easiest setting so they can screenshot their created player’s ridiculous stat lines at the end of the game and post it on Instagram.
Westbrook seems like he’s doing that – but in real life. NBA fans are lucky to see his sort of statlines once or twice a season – but four consecutive triple doubles? And not even the Jason Kidd-esque “10-10-10” TDs – he was averaging 37 points in the stretch.
Russ is playing like a man possessed. He’s dominating the ball, sure – but isn’t that the most entertaining basketball you can watch? A hyper-athletic, skillful point guard who is carrying an entire team on his shoulders and dominating the league?
Westbrook’s freakish run of form, added to his usual solid numbers when sharing with KD this season, should more-than make up for his missed November and see him claim his maiden Podoloff trophy.
Footnote
Just browsing Wikipedia quickly – KD and Russ could be the first teammates to win consecutive MVPs ever.
The closest I could find was Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki in 2006 and 2007. I got excited when I saw that different people won the 1971 and 1972 awards, until I realised they were Lew Alcindor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Build your own ultimate team! Pick your key players and take a shot at big cash prizes every day with Draftstars. For great odds on NBA games every day head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.
Nikola Jokic has scored 32 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to lead defending NBA champions Denver past LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers…
There will undoubtedly be upset results here and there in the NBA playoffs but there’s an overwhelming sense of fait accompli that Boston will…
LeBron James is going back to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years. Steph Curry is headed to the games for the…
The only realistic threat to Boston’s chances of strolling through the Eastern Conference is a team that could still end up in the play-in…
Australian guards Dante Exum and Josh Giddey have both come up big for their NBA clubs in crucial wins in the lead-in to the…
Minnesota Timberwolves fans have endured plenty of pain in their 35 years of being a laughing stock in the NBA. In all that time,…
