We Three Kings: NBA MVP Watch
The race for the league’s Most Valuable Player is likely down to Stephen Curry, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. So now what?
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The NBA MVP race is as wide-open as any we’ve witnessed in recent years. And while this season’s narrative has been shaped far more by team performances — the collaborative excellence of the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors, for example — than by individual brilliance, that’s not to say we haven’t seen individual brilliance.
Several players have been playing well enough to insert themselves into the MVP discussion. But so far, no one has been quite dominant enough to slam the door shut.
Since the All-Star break, the conversation has been focused in on three players — Stephen Curry, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. They are not the only names at the top, but they seem the most likely candidates.
(The case for Anthony Davis is undermined by his team’s struggles. LeBron’s resume is weakened by voter fatigue and that ugly November and December the Cavaliers slogged through. The Atlanta Hawks are viewed as a unit, and the stars of the Clippers and Trail Blazers have to deal with the ticket-splitting capabilities of multiple MVP candidates on the same team.)
In reality, it is the numbers themselves that reinforce the momentum-gaining notion that this is really a three-horse race. Feeding per-game player statistics into an MVP projection model spits out Curry, Harden and Westbrook as the most probable MVP candidates:
Curry and Harden would seem to have a significant edge here, but the MVP race is never as simple as totaling up box score statistics and team wins. Research I’ve done previously (with a slightly less-advanced projection model) shows that only about 50 percent of the variation in MVP voting can be explained by basic statistics like these. Essentially, the numbers define the candidates, but it is the power of a player’s narrative that ultimately drives the decision.
In fact, Curry, Harden and Westbrook are each able to write a compelling story that ends with the 2014–15 NBA Most Valuable Player Award.
1. Stephen Curry: The Best Player on the Best Team
Curry’s MVP narrative is, by far, the most straightforward. The Warriors are historically great this season. By Basketball-Reference’s SRS, which takes into account margin of victory and strength of opponent, the Warriors are currently having the fourth-most dominant regular season of all-time. This is a team winning basketball games at an .800 clip — and Curry is the heart and soul of the whole operation.
When Curry has been on the court this season, the Warriors have outscored opponents by an average of 17.1 points per 100 possessions — nearly three times the season-long point differential of the Hawks. When Curry has been on the bench, the Warriors have been outscored by an average of 1.7 points per 100 possessions — roughly equivalent to the season-long point differential of the Charlotte Hornets.
That spread — a difference of 18.8 points per 100 possessions — between his team’s performance when Curry is on the court and when he’s off the court, is by far the biggest of any of the MVP candidates the statistical model identified above.
On/off differential is noisy as a standalone metric for player performance, but as a narrative tool it does not lie or exaggerate. Curry’s presence, on the best team in the league, makes a bigger positive impact than anyone else’s presence does for their team. All this is supported by more granular measurements — his offensive efficiency, the way his shooting manipulates defensive spacing, and his subtle creep towards being a net positive defender. If you ascribe to the definition of MVP as best player on the best team, then there’s no real debate to be had: the choice is obviously Stephen Curry.
1A. James Harden: The Man Doing the Most with the Least
That the Houston Rockets currently have the fifth-best record in the league is something of a miracle — or at least speaks to the miraculous performance of James Harden this year. Their offseason chipped away at the team’s depth, and they’ve gotten just 32 games and a touch over 1,000 minutes from Dwight Howard. There have been some surprising improvements and unexpected additions, but mostly it has been Harden filling in the gaps.
The graph below shows the top six teams in the league (by win percentage) and the depth of their lineups by the Box Plus-Minus ratings of their top eight players.
Simply put, the lack of depth in Houston would be troubling, if not for the heroics of Harden. Box Plus-Minus is a box score-derived estimate of a player’s total offensive and defensive impact in net points per 100 possessions. A rating of 0.0 represents an average player. The Rockets next four players after Harden are all above-average, but just barely. The other five teams in this group each have at least three players with a rating of +2.0 or better. Everyone else but the Grizzlies has four.
The Rockets have just one — Harden.
Harden has improved on defense this year, too — maybe not dramatically — but in ways that are significant. He’s maintained his absurd levels of efficiency and is facilitating more than ever before. But the most striking aspect of Harden’s season is the chasm between him and everyone else on his team. In the age of super-teams and Big Threes, Harden has been a lone star in the Lone Star State, brightly lighting the way for a scrappy group of overachievers.
1B. Russell Westbrook: The Unleashed Beast
Of this MVP triumvirate, Westbrook is writing the most unique narrative, stealing elements from many of those who have come before him.
With Kevin Durant chasing the greased-up pig of good health, Westbrook has become the indisputable best player on this team. For the most recent portion of the season, his team has been among the league’s best. Since February 1, the Thunder have a per-100-possession point differential of +6.6, sixth-best in the league and they’re even a touch better than the Hawks across the entire season. Their 0.737 win percentage over that stretch ranks fourth.
And Westbrook can make the exact same argument as Harden — that he’s been making miracles singlehandedly. Here’s the same graph we saw above, but with Westbrook and the Thunder added in.
Other than Durant, who’s played just 27 games and hasn’t suited up in a month, the Thunder’s depth looks just as depressing as the Rockets.
Then there is the sheer statistical impressiveness of what Westbrook has done. He already has eight triple-doubles this season in 51 games played — or, a triple-double in nearly one out of every six games he’s played. The offensive load he has been carrying for the Thunder has been nothing short of monumental.
The graph below shows the percentage of a team’s points scored per 100 possessions produced by a single player, through points and assists.
These are conservative calculations, too — since I couldn’t differentiate between two and three-point assists, I treated them all as two-pointers. But the point still stands. No one even comes close to the quantity of Westbrook’s contributions.
Then there’s a few narrative elements that belong to Westbrook alone. His arc of ascension, for one; stepping out of the shadow of Durant with a career year nearly twice as productive as his previous best by BPM. He’s overcome obstacles, too: stepping around his own injuries, including a broken bone in his face. Not to mention leading his team through roster turmoil back to the playoffs. And, of course, there is the visceral, visual narrative of watching Westbrook exert his will, night after night. We expect a certain measure of physical dominance from our MVPs. And this season, Westbrook has been second to none in that category. He plays with a force of will and personality that no one else can match. Westbrook is Westbrook and you can’t stop him. End of story.
That being said, his case is far from ironclad. The Thunder, if they do make the playoffs, will only just qualify. He’s missed 15 games. He’s turning the ball over a lot (although his 4.2 per game don’t look quite as bad if you consider the offensive load he’s carrying) and his shooting efficiency continues to leave a lot to be desired. Compared to Curry and Harden, these dings look especially pronounced.
The fun of this year’s race is that every player has just enough flaws in his performance, just enough nits to be picked, that a great many arguments can be made and reasonable minds can differ. Depending on how you define “Most” and “Valuable,” and the relationship between the two, any number of defensible conclusions can be reached.
Still, when you tie all of those strands together — narrative and numeric — it’s hard to look away from the blinding light of Westbrook. For me, this is his year and it is his award.
