I also want to mention another quick issue before I delve into this topic in further detail since it's slightly off-topic. The fact that the NBA players voted for Harden says a lot about two things. Obviously, first is how deserving he was, but secondly-and more importantly in my mind-how the credentials for the award are getting blurred. Choosing winners for awards and accolades may always be difficult, but I think if we get specific regulations for the candidates, we can get more consistent voting.
Anyways, here are my thoughts...
Stephen Curry made the Golden State Warriors the best team in the league (67 wins) as he was their best player.
What the Golden State Warriors accomplished this year was astounding but this argument misses the point of what an MVP is. You have to consider how sensational the team around him is, something I explained in another article that I wrote right before the NBA Finals. Instead of rewriting the content of that article, I kindly ask you to read it.
Basically the main point I want to make here is that Stephen Curry was backed up by a phenomenal team which lifts an incredible weight off of his shoulders. To reiterate something I've been saying all season, the Warriors were so stacked that they had 3 playoff starters from just the season before this one, coming off their bench (David Lee, Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston). Two of those guys were All-Stars not too long ago as well! Meanwhile, James Harden was on a team riddled with injuries and barely had a teammate who was capable of bringing the ball up the court-something I'll expand on in the next point.
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| This stat shows that Harden shared the court with average or above average NBA players for 2,112 minutes, which is about only 1/5th of what Stephen Curry had the advantage of doing. |
There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the Houston Rockets have good players on their team. Unfortunately for them, most of their key ones were cursed with injuries as three starters spent a significant amount of time on the sidelines. These include: Patrick Beverley, who missed 26 games, Dwight Howard, who missed 41 games, and Terrence Jones, who missed 49 games. On top of that, they lost Chandler Parsons to the Dallas Mavericks in free agency before the season started. Now that is important news because it means that James Harden was the ONLY starter from last year's Rockets team to play more than 57 games, yet he still managed to carry them to the 2nd seed in a competitive Western Conference!* I honestly feel like that fact is so monumental that that alone should have won Harden the MVP trophy.
*I've been looking through many databases and it seems as if this is the only time that this feat has been done, proving more how grand this accomplishment is.
Some point to the addition of Corey Brewer and Josh Smith at the trade deadline being a critical point in the Rockets' season and while that may be true, it's hard for me to knock Harden's impressive year just because a couple of role players came in halfway through the season.
As evidenced above, James Harden overcame an adversity that no one else before him has. To paint a picture of how much he means to this team let's look at some jaw-dropping stats he put up.
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| As you can see in this picture, James Harden has a massive load to bear on offense and does so in a successful manner. He even has a significant lead in some of the stats shown here. |
Stephen Curry and the Warriors dominated so much that he sat out 18 4th quarters and had the fewest minutes played coming from an MVP in league history. His counting stat numbers could have been better if this weren't the case too.
This is a point that I have a hard time understanding. Not only is it purely hypothetical but why should someone get a boost in their argument for sitting out parts of games? The entire starting lineup had the best point differential in the NBA, not just Stephen Curry. How did they build that lead? League leading defense coupled with a pace that most teams cannot even keep up with.
I think the most ironic part of this argument is that you can switch the narrative and say that James Harden was needed so much by his team that they survived 4th quarters because of him. To me that sounds more convincing than Curry sitting out.
The Golden State Warriors didn't get any other awards this season (Draymond Green with DPOY and Steve Kerr with COY). It would be an atrocity if they didn't come away with any hardware if you look at the historic season they had.
If this did play a part in the voting, I would be incredibly disappointed in the writers who voted. All of these are INDIVIDUAL awards so this should not be a factor in any way. Now if this were the case, I strongly believe that Steve Kerr should have been the one to take the award as his accomplishments this season were much more impressive than Stephen Curry's.
Houston's jump in seeding has more to do with their defense than Harden carrying the offense. They were 4th in Offensive Efficiency last year but only 12th this year. Conversely, on the defensive metric they jumped from being ranked 12th, all the way to 6th.
Harden finished the year in the top 10 in defensive win shares which was actually the biggest reason for this massive jump. Don't let vines and YouTube videos of a few plays years ago convince you otherwise-James Harden is a good defender. Additionally, he averaged 1.9 steals and 0.7 blocks per game, both highly respectable numbers (especially the blocks considering the fact that he's a shooting guard). The most impressive part of all this is that Harden was often found guarding either the first or second best perimeter player on the other team too. Because of Beverley's injury, Harden had to step up his game on that end of the court and did so in a big way.
On another note, that brings me to Stephen Curry's defense. While it has improved, we still have to note that his responsibilities on that end of the court are minimal. With so many plus-defenders on his team such as Andrew Bogut, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, and Shaun Livingston, Curry is usually asked to guard the worst player on the floor if size permits that.
James Harden relies on free throws too much (accounts for 33.2% of his points). If you take away that part of his game he only scores 18.6 ppg.
Shooting free throws are a part of the game for a reason. The old adage has always been: good scorers get to the free throw line often. Why would anyone fault Harden for this? It makes absolutely no sense to me. Drawing fouls and shooting free throws because of that is a damn good skill to have. That's like saying, "Hey Curry shoots too many threes (accounts for 45.4% of his points). If you take that part of his game away he only averages 13 ppg". Bottom line is that it wouldn't make sense to just subtract a strong part of their game for both players.
On a side note, if you take away the points Curry scores from free throws, he averages 19.8 ppg. This number is almost identical to the adjusted number of Harden's mentioned earlier, which I found to be pretty ironic. Either way, it just wouldn't make sense to just subtract a strong part of their game from both players.
The Rockets had 8 players average in double figures while the Warriors only had 5.
At first glance this is a really strong argument that favors Curry but there's still a little more to consider. The following table will show you a side-by-side comparison of what I mean.
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| While the Warriors may have only had 5 players averaging double figures compared to Houston's 8, Houston had a lot less games played from these players. Additionally, the disparity between the top two scorers of each team is telling of how much scoring help Harden did have. |
The beautiful offense we see from the Warriors is because of Curry. Without him it would be stagnant.
False. The Warriors offense is the way it is because everyone contributes due to the coaching philosophies. It relies heavily on ball and player movement, and incorporates the entire team. If you really think Stephen Curry is the reason for the fluid offense just compare the on-court product of this years' Warriors to the team from the 2013-2014 season. That team had an incredibly identical look yet relied very heavily on isolation ball. This is the way former Head Coach Mark Jackson wanted to run games, so the team went that direction.
Curry is great at running this offense but he's not the main reason it looks this way. Give credit to where it is due and praise Steve Kerr for that.
James Harden flops and travels too much.
This is where things get very subjective. This argument reveals more bias from the speaker than anything else too. Harden exploits the rules of the NBA permitting "2.5 steps" by picking up his dribble at the right time and selling the call. It's annoying to watch from an opposing perspective but the fact of the matter is that Harden is not doing anything wrong. If anything, the fans should be blaming the NBA officiating crew for not trying to put an end to this.
Curry also has a habit of kicking his legs out and falling on three point attempts. He was fined in 2015 for doing this as the NBA declared it as an act of flopping. Meanwhile, Harden hasn't been fined for flopping in years. I'm not accusing either one of being a flopper, but if you're using this argument to try to weaken Harden's case, you really need to grow up.
The NBA wants to be represented by a well-liked character like Stephen Curry.
Stephen Curry is a beloved figure by many and is probably the most liked player in the NBA. His humility, down-to-earth attitude, talent, and work ethic sum up to make a high character and an easily likable person. But this isn't a popularity contest. This should not even be a factor for what makes you win the MVP award. The NBA does not need Curry to win the award to promote or market him as a public figure either as that's an easy task to accomplish without granting him the award. Why not look at LeBron and Kobe's careers? Kobe didn't win his lone MVP until his 12th season and LeBron didn't win his first one until his 6th season, yet the NBA had no problem making those two athletes the cover men of their league. If any voter considered this while casting their ballot, then I'm sorry but you are missing the point. How well liked you are in the public's eyes does not have ANY correlation with how valuable you are to your team. Additionally, James Harden has had no off-the-court issues and no documented history of attitude problems. The only negative comment written about Harden is that him and Howard eat separately from the rest of the Houston Rockets, but that was proven to be inaccurate as the media accidentally misunderstood Montiejunas.
In my opinion, this is the dumbest point I have heard so far in regards to this debate. It doesn't even have to do with basketball.
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