We won’t waste a lot of digital ink charting out the Byzantine complexity involved in trying to quantify a given player’s value to his team, or revisiting the old familiar arguments about which major factors should weigh more heavily than others when it comes to awarding the league’s most prestigious individual accolade, i.e. the NBA MVP trophy. It’s well-trodden territory. Suffice it to say that a number of criteria come into play, such as available statistical data (both basic and advanced), team success, recent play, strength of schedule, that rather nebulous quality we like to call “leadership,” clutch play, defense, hustle, overall basketball IQ, championship contender status, toughness, entertainment factor/GIFability, a healthy amount of subjectivity and/or confirmation bias on our part, “what have you done for me lately,” and much, much more.
So, here are our top five MVP candidates through March 20. We’ve kept the list to the top five so that we’re only discussing the very cream of the crop and because this is a bi-monthly column, so that we can focus more narrowly on what’s happened in just the past two weeks. We’ll still briefly discuss a handful of other players who just missed the cut, but deserve a shout-out nonetheless.
1. Steph Curry
The NBA world was finally treated to the proverbial Titan-clashing we were deprived of the first time these two teams met, and what emerged from the wreckage was perhaps something of a blueprint for success against the defending champs: play them ugly. The Spurs held the Warriors to their lowest point total of the season and badgered Curry into a frigid 1-of-12 shooting from downtown. Still, it wasn’t enough to knock the reigning MVP off his pedestal. For that to even be a remote possibility, Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs – who are just three games behind the Warriors and on a historic run of their own – would have to steal the No. 1 seed in the West out from under them in the final stretch. And even then, it would be extraordinarily difficult to ignore Curry’s season-long brilliance and the way he’s captivated the sports world over the past five months.
The Spurs are on a six-game win streak and have won 20 of their last 22 games. Last week, they got decisive victories over the Clippers and Blazers and capped it off with a gritty win over the defending champion Golden State Warriors. Granted, LaMarcus Aldridge was the star of the show Saturday, but even on an off shooting night, Leonard still managed to put his imprint on the game: 18 points, 14 rebounds, four assists and two blocked shots. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year has become quite clearly the best two-way player in the NBA as he continues to show off his ever-expanding offensive repertoire. Part of that has entailed him evolving into one of the very best three-point shooters in the the league, behind only J.J. Redick (and ahead of Curry) in terms of his efficiency from downtown.
3. LeBron James
LeBron and the Cavs have won seven out of their last ten, but those losses were the product of disturbingly uninspired performances, the nadir of which was their stunning defeat at the hands of a severely-depleted Memphis Grizzlies team on March 7 and Sunday’s loss in Miami. Still, even if his teammates have been inconsistent, it’s hard to characterize LeBron’s play as anything less than stellar. So far this month, he’s averaging 24.2 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 5.9 assists on better than 50 percent shooting from the floor. Cleveland’s next four games are against sub-.500 teams, so LeBron will need to lead his Cavs to some easy victories if they want to hold on to their tenuous grasp on the East’s No. 1. spot now that the surging Raptors are just a game-and-a-half behind.
4. Kevin Durant
Since we last checked in on OKC, they’ve recovered nicely from that string of high-profile losses to the Warriors and Clippers. They’re currently on a four-game winning streak and have won six out of their last eight. Kevin Durant has been outstanding during that stretch, averaging 26.7 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 7.5 assists. He closed the week with a solid win over the Indiana Pacers in which he put up 33 points, 13 rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Durant’s play this season has been one of the biggest casualties of the Steph Curry juggernaut and is even more remarkable given how seamlessly he’s worked his way back into the mix with the next player on this list.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but as brilliant as Durant has been, Westbrook has been arguably as impressive. Detractors will argue against the logic of having two MVP candidates on the same team, but alas, here we are. After all, there isn’t much logic that can account for a player putting up three massive triple-doubles in his last four games, especially when sharing the court with a teammate who’s posting equally-as-astounding numbers. But that’s standard operating procedure for Russell Westbrook, who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake everywhere he goes like he’s Fackler from the Police Academy franchise.
Notables
We mentioned above that the Cavaliers’ hold on the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed is more slippery than ever right now, and that’s because Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors are squarely in their rear-view mirror and much closer than they may appear.
After being out of the playoff picture for the majority of the season, Kemba Walker has helped will the Charlotte Hornets into a four-way free-for-all for the third seed in the Eastern Conference behind outstanding play of late.
We’ve been singing Chris Paul’s praises for months now, and for very good reason. Without Blake Griffin in the lineup for a large chunk of the season, he’s dragged the Clippers by the hair to a veritable stranglehold on the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference standing and a comfortable four-game lead over the Grizzlies. Then again, they’ve lost four of their last five, with only last Wednesday’s win in Houston their only victory over the last calendar week.
