LeBron threatening to deny Harden of long overdue MVP award
Houston Rockets fans will riot if James Harden is denied yet again of his overdue Most Valuable Player award.
It's past the point of shifting goalposts to suit the narrative. Harden was the lone superstar with gaudy stats propping up a 56-win team in 2015, but lost to the better player on the better team in Stephen Curry. Harden was then the better player on the better team in 2017, but lost to the lone superstar with gaudy stats propping up a 47-win team in Russell Westbrook. How is that fair?
Those second-place finishes drove Harden to improve his game to the point where he eliminated every excuse. He's now the best player on the best team, making the biggest shots every night while leading the league in scoring. That MVP award should already have his name on it.
But at the last second, here comes another challenger in LeBron James that threatens to deny Harden yet again.
After playing perhaps the best month of regular season basketball in his career, James made the case for himself.
"I would vote for me," he told Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. "The body of work, how I'm doing it, what's been happening with our team all year long, how we've got so many injuries and things of that nature, guys in and out, to be able to still keep this thing afloat, I definitely would vote me."
When the King speaks, the people listen. His proclamations instantly become major headlines and debate show topics, and thus the conversation that was sealed months ago came undone. James holds enormous influence over everything in basketball, and he chose to wield it for himself.
It's not as if it's completely unwarranted, because how is a four-time MVP not deserving of his fifth when he's arguably having his best season to date in his 15th year? James is averaging career highs in rebounding and assists, while scoring more points than he has since his first tour through Cleveland.
Here's how this season compares to his other MVP seasons:
| Statistic | 2009 | 2010 | 2012 | 2013 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPG | 37.7 | 39.0 | 37.5 | 37.9 | 37.1 |
| PPG | 28.4 | 29.7 | 27.1 | 26.8 | 27.4 |
| RPG | 7.6 | 7.3 | 7.9 | 8.0 | 8.6 |
| APG | 7.2 | 8.6 | 6.2 | 7.3 | 9.1 |
| TS% | 59.1 | 60.4 | 60.5 | 64.0 | 62.3 |
Looking past the raw numbers, James also had to overcome a tough set of circumstances in yet another drama-riddled season.
It started with Kyrie Irving blindsiding the organization with his trade request in the summer. The Cavaliers lost their second-best player and received nothing of immediate value in return. Then came the circus around Derrick Rose's sudden disappearance, the endless bickering over starting spots, and, finally, the total disaster that was Isaiah Thomas' comical month in Cleveland.
The Cavaliers were in such a state of disarray that general manager Koby Altman decided to detonate the entire squad in a matter of hours at the trade deadline. He shipped out six rotation players and handed James the challenge of integrating a foreign set of supporting pieces just two months ahead of the playoffs.
There was nobody to take the burden off James. He didn't even have a starting point guard earlier this season, yet he rattled off an 18-1 stretch with 36-year-old Jose Calderon acting as a placeholder. Kevin Love was expected to step up with Irving out, but he was a defensive disaster at center and missed six weeks due to injury. Even head coach Tyronn Lue has missed time.
As always, James was left to carry the entire franchise. A 15-year veteran should try to rest before embarking on his eighth straight trip to The Finals, yet he hasn't missed a single game this season and leads the league in minutes played. Without him, Cleveland would be in the lottery. Instead, it's the favorite to come out of the East.
James could teach Harden a few things about double standards, as he's been the best player in the league for going on a decade and was only recognized as such for half of that run.
He falls victim to being judged against his own standard of excellence. His greatness gets taken for granted because greatness is always the expectation for James, and so he can almost never succeed despite being wildly successful by any other standard.
Just look at 2011, when he finished third to Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard in the MVP race. He was denied on the basis of backlash to his free-agency decision, but James was eventually vindicated in the playoffs as he easily eliminated Rose in five games while Howard flamed out in the first round.
Or look at 2015, when James averaged 36 points, 13 rebounds, and nine assists with a supporting cast of Iman Shumpert, Matthew Dellavedova, and Timofey Mozgov, only to lose Finals MVP to Andre Iguodala on the basis of his defense. The argument went that Iguodala held James in check, even though James led the entire series in points and assists.
Harden can claim he's overdue, but so can James. And while nobody would fault voters for siding with the best player on the best team, every voter also sees James as the best player, period, and it wouldn't be a travesty or a surprise if he were recognized as such with his fifth MVP.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)