Chris Paul was my favorite basketball player to watch growing up. He could get anywhere on the court whenever he wanted to, was unselfish enough to set up his teammates and didn’t force anything.  I tried to model my game after him, always working on my passing, dribbling and midrange shooting. I currently stand an unimposing five foot seven inches tall and still can’t shoot to save my life, so that didn’t necessarily go as planned.

Back to Chris Paul though, I had always felt that he was worthy of MVP honors, especially in the 08-09 season when he was the only good player on his Hornets team that he carried to a 49-win seven-seed in the playoffs.  Due to my belief that Chris Paul should have been an MVP, I have always felt that the MVP should go to the best player on the team that over-performed most drastically and would have been terrible without them.  For example, I thought that the NFL MVP during the 2016-2017 season should have been the Cowboys offensive line, because they were the reason that Dak and Zeke played the way they did.  In the 2014-2015 season, I thought that Anthony Davis deserved the MVP because that Hornets team would have ended up top five in the lottery had he not been on the team, and instead made the playoffs over a Thunder team that was then limited to Russell Westbrook just like this season.

This season’s MVP award is really down to two main candidates: Russell Westbrook and James Harden. My personal opinion is that Russell Westbrook should be the MVP, but my gut tells me that James Harden will win it because of his team’s success.  Westbrook plays on a team of significantly inferior talent than that of Houston and has still carried them to victory, averaging a triple double and leading the league in scoring in the process.  Harden’s team has the three seed in the West, he leads the league in assists and is second in scoring, only to Westbrook.  Statistically, Westbrook leads the league in points produced with 2931, but Harden leads in win shares with 15.

Here are the stat lines for each of our two major candidates:

	Wins	PPG	APG	RPG	SPG	BPG	TPG	FG%	3P%	FT%
James Harden	55	29.1	11.2	8.1	1.5	0.5	5.7	44	34.7	84.7
Russell Westbrook	47	31.6	10.4	10.7	1.6	0.4	5.4	42.5	34.3	84.5

From a basic perspective, both players have had incredible scoring and passing seasons and neither of those statistics can be utilized to differentiate the two of them.  Rebounding, though, has a wider margin.  Westbrook rebounded at an incredible rate for a point guard, despite the fact that Steven Adams and Enes Kanter are both good rebounders in their own right.  While Harden was a great rebounder, what Westbrook did was truly spectacular.

I decided to put this to the test by running the numbers, using every MVP’s stat line since 1980, when the 3-pt line was introduced.  Given that it starts in 1980, we miss out on all of Bill Russell’s, Wilt Chamberlin’s and all but one of Kareem Abdul-Jabaar’s MVP seasons.  Also, with two lockout shortened seasons in 1998-1999 and 2011-2012, the total win shares numbers were projected for those seasons based off of an eighty-two game season and the win totals for Karl Malone’s Jazz and LeBron James’ Heat were projected by their winning percentages.

Despite this differentiation, the trend in recent MVP years demonstrates a lowered value being placed on rebounding.  So, while what Westbrook did was special, the transition that the league is taking from a big man’s league to a small-ball centered league has resulted in a diminished impact on voters.

Being that wins set the MVP candidates apart more than many other statistics this season do, win totals have been a core point of discussion when thinking about the MVP race. In 2016-2017, Westbrook’s team only finished 5 games above .500.  Traditionally, players on teams with higher win totals do better as the only player since 1980 to win the MVP with a win total under 50 was Moses Malone in the 1981-1982 season when he won 46 games.  Russell Westbrook would be a huge exception to what has transpired in recent times, and it seems as though it would make more sense for voters to  choose Harden.  However, how does one account for a player who averaged a triple double the entire season? Could Westbrook be an exception to the trend, despite the fact that Oscar Robertson didn’t win the MVP when he averaged a triple double?

There is an argument to be made for each of these candidates within the two main differentiators, so with these arguments being presented, we may move to what it means to be the Most Valuable Player.  Everybody has their opinion of what being the MVP in basketball means, but to me, it is the person with the biggest impact on their team.  Harden led the Rockets to the biggest positive win differential against pre-season totals put out by the book makers in Vegas this season.  The Rockets were given 41.5 wins and the Thunder had 45.5. Harden’s team far exceeded their number by 13.5 wins, and Westbrook’s team only over-performed by 1.5.  This acts as a check for Harden. Once again, Westbrook is able to respond due to the poor shooting of his team. Both Westbrook and Harden positively impacted their team’s shooting performance from two point range as their teammates shot better off of assists from them (10.1% and 9.6% respectively).  However, Westbrook is the only one who positively impacted his teammates on a three-point shooting capacity in an increasingly three point shooting league. Despite this, Harden’s teammates shot 8.3% better than Westbrook’s teammates on wide open thees, leading to a record-setting three point shooting season for the Rockets. This can partially be credited to the fact that GM Daryl Morey has built a team completely designed to shoot the three and to make layups.

So, who is the MVP this year? According to my theory, while it is my strong opinion that Russell Westbrook had a greater positive impact on his team, based on the history of MVP voting and the impact that James Harden has made on his team this season, Harden is likely to receive this year’s trophy.

Injuries are apart of sports at all levels, but they are thrust into the national spotlight at the professional level.  Countless players who were once deemed as promising prospects and perennial All-Stars have had their careers severely altered after a major injury. It is always disappointing to see such talent be caged by something as frustrating as an injury, but it unfortunately is a part of the game that both players and coaches must plan and prepare for an injury that keeps them out of action for months.

Perhaps no one in the NBA in the past few years embodies a “what could have been” talent than current New York Knicks and former Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose.  Drafted first overall out of Memphis to his hometown Bulls, Rose was named Rookie of the Year and was also named to three All-Star teams in his first four NBA seasons.  Rose was undoubtedly the face of the NBA after his 2010-2011 MVP award and was considered apart of the youth movement that was slowly making its way around the NBA, specifically at the point guard position.  He was subsequently awarded a lifetime shoe deal with Adidas and a max contract extension. However, after Rose tore his ACL in the 2012 playoffs, his career took a turn for the worst.

To date since his injury, Rose has never played a full season in the NBA. His breathtaking agility and athleticism that he relied upon to elevate him to elite status were never the same after his countless knee injuries and after that ACL tear, missing a combined 152 games throughout the rest of his tenure in Chicago.  Rose undoubtedly would have and most likely still would be a perennial MVP candidate and a top-five point guard in the league would he have avoided his major injuries.

Rose is not the only NBA player to have had their promising careers cut short and altered by major injuries.  Grant Hill was tabbed to be one of the best players of all time, but his nagging ankle injury forced him to only suit up for 47 games for the Orlando Magic in his first four seasons with the team upon signing with them in free agency from a successful and promising tenure with the Detroit Pistons.  He went from a constant triple-double threat to a role player with no lag-time in the middle of his NBA career.  While he still carved out a respectable career, one can only imagine what his career would have been had those ankle injuries not arisen.

Tracy McGrady was regarded as one of the best “one-on-one” players in the league during his prime, with his signature moment coming against the San Antonio Spurs while he was with the Houston Rockets when he scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds of the game to complete an epic comeback victory. He had nagging back, shoulder and knee issues that left him with rarely any significant playing time towards the latter part of his career. These injuries kept a great player from being an all-time great, impeding McGrady from ever being able to win an NBA championship.

Brandon Roy, one of my favorite players to watch during his time with the Portland Trailblazers, was forced to retire in his mid 20s due to knee injuries.  Kobe Bryant has said on multiple occasions that he was the toughest assignment to guard on defense throughout his whole career. He, along with Trailblazers teammate Greg Oden make up a couple of the biggest question marks in the history of the NBA.  Roy looked to be a consistent All-Star and Oden was chosen first overall in the 2007 NBA draft, so it must have been heartbreaking for Trailblazers fans to see their players of the future to go down for their entire careers with injury trouble.

There are too many examples of injuries ruining or altering careers.  One can only feel for the players who are affected by them, but as mentioned before, they are an unavoidable aspect of competing at the highest level.