James Harden finally got his MVP award on Monday night at the 2018 NBA Awards. Harden was outstanding this year for the Houston Rockets, and once the voting for the award became public, it was clear that he had essentially ran away with the award. Outside of Harden, only LeBron James received any first-place votes.
James, of course, is a contender for the award every year by nature of him being the best basketball player alive, but has not won it since 2013. If Kyrie Irving had his way, though, that would have changed this year and his former teammate in Cleveland would have hoisted the MVP trophy.
Irving appeared on HOT 97 and said that while he was “happy” for Harden, the award “definitely” should have gone to James, as the “people’s MVP” plays for the Rockets whereas the “NBA MVP” is on the Cavaliers for now.
“I didn’t vote,” Irving said. “I didn’t vote. I think MVP is hard to gauge nowadays because now you have the people’s MVP and the NBA’s MVP. I think the people’s MVP was definitely James, but the NBA MVP was definitely Bron.
“If we’re talking strictly based off stats, [LeBron] checks every mark,” Irving continued.
It’s a debate that we can have basically every season, because everyone’s criteria for establishing an MVP is different — should it be determined by value, should it go to the best player in the league, or should it be a mix of both? Irving seems to think the right answer is to give it to the league’s best player, and in his eyes, that’s his former teammate.
(Via SLAM)
