If the NBA season ended tomorrow, James Harden would win the league MVP award. It’s rare for there to be a clear-cut frontrunner for the award before we even get to the halfway point of December, but Harden has been so insane during the 2017-18 campaign that he has established himself as the guy to beat through 25 games.
He has done this by doing what he’s done ever since Mike D’Antoni took over in Houston. Harden is scoring like a madman and setting up his teammates whenever he has the opportunity, which has always been a delight to watch but is even more fun this year now that Chris Paul is around.
Harden did all of this on Monday night during the Rockets’ 130-123 win against New Orleans. The Pelicans led by as many as 13 points, but it did not matter, because Houston had Harden and they did not. The MVP frontrunner had 26 points, 17 assists, and six steals. It was a performance the league hasn’t seen in, well, ever.
https://twitter.com/KellyScaletta/status/940420850104315905
The craziest aspect of this — other than that general box score because it’s comical — is that Harden imposed himself down the stretch. He was able to completely take over the game, which is something you see out of MVP-caliber players in tight matchups like this.
Harden had 12 points, 2 assists, and 4 steals in the last 6:30 of the 4th quarter.
— ORIGINAL BERF (@EuroBigMacs) December 12, 2017
And while he did a little bit of everything down the stretch, his first half was dedicated to getting his teammates involved. He had 12 first-half points, which is perfectly fine, but the far more notable occurrence was that he had 14 first-half assists with zero turnovers.
James Harden has 14 assists and 0 turnovers… at halftime. Absolutely insane
— Hoops Reference (@HoopsReference) December 12, 2017
Talking about the MVP award this early in the season can be dangerous, but it’s not a stretch at all to say that it’s Harden’s award to lose right now. This doesn’t mean that anyone can take it from him — LeBron James, for instance, has been playing out of his mind, too — but if Harden can keep this level of play up for the rest of the season, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than him getting his first MVP award.
