The 2017-18 NBA regular season is coming to an end, and usually, by this time of the year, most people have a player in mind for who they believe should win the 2018 NBA Most Valuable Player Award. But this season, it, without doubt, comes down to two players, although some people see Kyrie Irving of the Boston Celtics or Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans as threats to the throne: James Harden and LeBron James are the clear front-runners.
James Harden has led the Houston Rockets to the best record in the entire league with a record of 63-15 with 4 games left in the season.
He has done so while averaging great numbers too, those are a season-best 30.7 points per game, 8.8 assists per game, 5.4 rebounds per game, 1.8 steals per game and 0.7 blocks per game on 44.9 percent shooting from the field and 36.5 percent from beyond the arc. While on the other hand, LeBron James is having one of his best seasons of his remarkable career for Cleveland, averaging 27.4 points, 9.1 assists, 8.7 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 0.9 blocks per contest while shooting an insane 54.2 percent from the field and 36.6 percent from deep. Both players are having a remarkable season, as Washington’s head coach agreed.
Co-MVP?
We have never seen two players win one MVP award in the NBA’s 72 years.
We have seen Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant share an all-star game MVP award in 2009 after the voters couldn’t decide who was more deserving of the award. But the regular season MVP award is more ‘valuable’ and there is no chance that two players both receive the award, however, Wizards head coach thinks they both should.
Scott Brooks said Harden is “definitely an MVP this year” but stated that “LeBron can get it every year. Like Michael Jordan should have 12 of them. LeBron’s the same type of player… he’s having probably a better year than he had before.” When it comes to who Brooks would vote for to get the award if he could, he said LeBron James is “deserving, he put in a lot of work… gotten better every year” but he will always be biased to James Harden as he coached him a few years back when they reached the Finals in 2012.
He credited Harden to their success and their run all the way to the Finals.
What could have been
Scott Brooks added that he wished the Oklahoma City Thunder kept James Harden on the team instead of trading him to the Houston Rockets in 2012. Since the trade, Kevin Durant won the MVP award in 2014, Russell Westbrook won the award in 2017, and James Harden may be on the path to winning it in 2018. It’s crazy that they were all once teammates and were unable to go all the way to a championship together. They now play on separate teams that will fight for a title once again this year.
