My take on this year's NBA MVP award (thus far)

This appears in the April 6, 2015 edition of the Business Mirror.

My take on this year’s NBA MVP award

by rick olivares

There are four candidates this season for the NBA’s Maurice Podoloff Trophy otherwise known as the MVP Award. Since the 1980-81 season, voting for the award is cast by selected sportswriters and broadcasters.

Currently, there are four candidates for this season’s award. And it is quite refreshing to even see a photo finish instead of the runaway choices of recent years.

Player	Minutes	Points	Rebounds	Assists	Team Record As of April 4
James Harden	36.9	27.5	5.7	7.0	52-24
Russell Westbrook	34.2	27.5	7.2	8.6	42-34
LeBron James	36.3	25.6	5.9	7.3	49-27
Stephen Curry	32.9	23.8	4.3	7.8	62-13

ESPN’s John Hollinger developed the Player Efficiency Ratings that attempts to calculate a player’s contributions (that span all positive and negative game stats) into one number.

It is a system that has been used to compare players and determine their overall value. The knock on the system is that it only provides what is more or less an accurate of an offensive player but not an offensive player. Nevertheless, it is something that has since been valued by coaches and game analysts since.

Based on the Hollinger formula, here is this season’s Top 10 (with our four MVP candidates italicized).

Rank	Player	Games Played	Player Efficiency Rating as of April 4
1	Anthony Davis (New Orleans)	61	31.00
2	Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City)	61	28.64
3	Stephen Curry (Golden State)	73	27.87
4	Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City)	27	27.67
5	James Harden (Houston)	75	26.81
6	Hassan Whiteside (Miami)	43	26.41
7	LeBron James (Cleveland)	65	26.07
8	Chris Paul (Los Angeles C)	76	25.84
9	DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento)	58	25.55
10	Blake Griffin (Los Angeles C)	61	23.08

Should a voter look at the circumstances for all the candidates?

-       Previous season

-       Team depth

-       Injuries

-       Competition

-       Stats

-       Playoff chances

I think yes, a voter should take a look at everything and weigh it.

One may ask what does the previous season have to do with this year? The answer is, everything. If their team was a non-playoff team the previous campaign and now they are in the hunt, what changed? Did Candidate X significantly raise his game?

Regarding team depth, does Candidate X make his team better? Does his team play against great competition night after night? Or does he play against inferior competition and he pads his stats because of that?

Definitely, the MVP has to come from a team that is moving on to the NBA’s second season that is the playoffs. The only time they should make an exception for this is if a player from a lottery squad averages a triple double for the entire year.

Moving on, let’s take a look at the four candidates.

Russell Westbrook is proving a lot of doubters wrong the way he has raised the level of his game. He is single-handedly carrying OKC to the playoffs sans Kevin Durant who is out for the season. As of this writing, the Thunder are in eighth spot in the Western Conference picture. And that is largely because of Westbrook’s play. Yes, this is the same Westbrook who has come back from all sorts of injuries and has picked up the lightning rod of criticism (from LeBron James who let it go after he won two NBA titles) for selfish play and being caught in all sorts of rumors from a poor relationship with the coach to issues with his teammates, you know – the typical team dysfunction story -- to lift this team.

James Harden too bucked the prolonged absence of Dwight Howard to carry the Houston Rockets night after night. He is without a doubt make a last charge for the voters’ attention.

LeBron James has seen his Cleveland Cavaliers down in the standings to climb back to second in the Eastern Conference. He is at a point where Michael Jordan was late in his career, he’s there stats-wise but seems like a tired vote (wasn’t that why Charles Barkley won the award in 1993).

I am not saying Barkley didn’t deserve it in ’93. In fact, he should have won another earlier but the award was given to Magic Johnson who was the “sexy” or popular choice. Chuck continued his stellar play from the 1992 Olympics all the way to the next NBA season with Phoenix where he had a great cast.

And that is where Steph Curry finds himself. With a great cast in G-State that has played great. Key to the Warriors’ success is Andre Igoudala accepting his bench role; one that has paid great dividends. I have to admit Steph Curry has been phenomenal in a season filled with highlights. And that makes him the popular choice. What the stats do not say is how he sits down a lot in the fourth period to get some badly needed rest as the Warriors have been in a lot of blowout wins this campaign. That hurts him statistically.

I like all four candidates all who could win it.

If it’s close, I’ll go to the tiebreaker that is the stats. Are stats everything? No. But they provide a measure of where a player stands than mere, highlights or other intangibles.

And right now, today, if I could cast a vote, it will go to… Russell Westbrook. If OKC falls out of the playoff picture, it will come down to James Harden and Steph Curry. Now that's another dissertation.