Mark Cuban: "MVP Is A Toss Up Between Lebron & Harden"

thernbroom

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Russell Westbrook is having a historic 2016-17 season with the Thunder. He’s averaging 31.7 points, 10.1 assists and 10.7 rebounds this season. He’s been fantastic.

But according to Mark Cuban, Westbrook would not be in the mix for MVP. He revealed his two candidates before Sunday’s Dallas-Oklahoma City game, and the only two players he’d consider were LeBron James and James Harden.
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And it wasn’t an unintentional omission — Cuban appears to be doubling down on his criticism of Westbrook from last season. He said then that the Thunder guard was not a superstar.

Despite leading the league in scoring and averaging a triple-double, Westbrook’s status has not changed in Cuban’s eyes. Westbrook would need to win a playoff series and 50 games for Cuban to reconsider.
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While there is surely an argument as to who should be the MVP, Westbrook deserves to be in the mix by nearly every measure. His individual stats are off the charts, but the MVP often has some reflection of the team’s performance. The Thunder have dropped in the standings without Kevin Durant, but they are still in a position to make the playoffs. They also have a shot at 50 wins this season.


As he did last season, Cuban oddly litigated Westbrook’s superstar status as his own team was about to play the Thunder. And also just like last season, Westbrook is absolutely a superstar.

Though never confirmed, it was rumored that Mark Cuban paid a man to heckle Westbrook at Philly game
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Honestly seeing Westbrook lose to useless ass teams like the Mavs (record wise) is really hurting his case for an award that's always favored winners first. Like what he's doing is incredible, but James is performing at damn near the same level with a far better team. LeBron has both the narratives and what have you done for me lately working for him right now. shyt it would probably be better for him if Love and Jr didn't come back until playoffs (obv only for MVP purposes). The longer this season has gone on, the less likely it seems like he's pulling it off tbh. I think they've only won one game against the top 3 seeds in conf?
 
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Harden and Kawhi IMO. LeBron with that super team and being in the East should translate to a way higher win percentage for him to be a MVP candidate. If the Cavs had a record similar to the Spurs even, I'd throw him in the conversation. Russ not even leading a top 10 team at the moment.

Kawhi should actually be the MVP favorite to be real. He's been making his case this past month so I expect way more MVP chants going his way in the upcoming weeks.
 
<<TheStandard>>

<<TheStandard>>

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To me the MVP is between Harden and Kawhi and Kawhi has made a very strong push lately. Especially in the past 3 games where they could have easily let the Rockets back into contention for the 2 seed. The game winner in Indy, the strip on Jrue, the strip on Wiggins, just clutch plays all week and all year really. I think Kawhi's candidacy is being underrated by the respect people have for Pop's system and culture which in some ways is fair.

Lebron has been great but sits out too many back to backs. That hurts it for me. Also I think the presence of Kyrie/Love (I know injured as of late) and the begging for more help (although he was right in his assertion for a back up PG/playmaker since Delly left) makes it tough.


To me tho, this has been the difference between Harden and Russ when it comes to MVP. Look at the play Russ makes vs the play Harden makes to close the game. I can show about 5 or 6 games where Russ this year lost a close game/blew a lead on launching a stupid ass shot.
Also the team record makes a huge difference.

 
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<<TheStandard>> said:
To me tho, this has been the difference between Harden and Russ when it comes to MVP. Look at the play Russ makes vs the play Harden makes to close the game. I can show about 5 or 6 games where Russ this year lost a close game/blew a lead on launching a stupid ass shot.
Also the team record makes a huge difference.

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Just to play devil's advocate :lolbron: -

To be fair to Westbrook he scored 49 points on 47% shooting (8-15 from behind the arc) in that game, whereas Harden put up 26 points on 37% shooting and had quite a lot of ticky-tack fouls go his way (twice as many FTMs than FGMs). Sure Westbrook could've definitely made a better decision on that last possession, but it wasn't like he didn't thoroughly outperform Harden - who had the benefit of balanced scoring throughout the team (yes, it was partly because he was passing more, but the team did generate a lot of production without Harden's direct hand).

Harden's performed pretty poorly against the Thunder this season:

37% shooting performance with six turnovers
26% shooting performance with eight turnovers
25% shooting performance with six turnovers

When they've faced off this season, Westbrook has pretty much made him a footnote in most of those 12 periods, and despite his inconsistent decision making clearly showed why he's the one with a better skillset and more impact.
 
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