NBA 2015-16: Top 5 regular season MVP candidates
The last couple of days of the regular season are exciting, to say the least. On Wednesday, the final day of the regular season, the Golden State Warriors will face the Memphis Grizzlies at home and attempt to break the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls record of 72 wins. Not far from Oakland, Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant laced up his boots one final time against the Utah Jazz at the Staples Center.
Getting back to the title of the piece, this year’s MVP debate has a lot of worthy names but one player stands way ahead of the pack as the front-runner. Before we go about dropping any names, it’s important to know and understand the criteria based on which the players are ranked:
- Team’s record
- Value to the team
- Number of games played.
- Consistency
Some players deserve a certain degree of attention for the season they have had, even if they didn’t make it to the list for the top 5. Here are some:
Honorable Mentions:
Yes, the Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star Guard Russell Westbrook does not make it to the top 5 candidates. Westbrook averages 23.5 points (9th), 10.4 assists (2nd), 7.8 rebounds (1st in guards) and 2.04 steals (5th) through 80 games played this season.
His PER (Player Efficiency Rating) is 27.62, 5th best in the league, yet he is not in the top five. He has 18 triple doubles this year, the most since the NBA/ABA merger, including one which he registered before halftime.
All those stats are simply mind-boggling. Another year he might be the unanimous MVP but not today. The Thunder have 55 wins but it’s their 25 losses which hurt Westbrook’s case. Fourteen of those losses have come when they enter the fourth quarter with a lead, that’s got to say something about the team’s failure to execute on both ends of the floor in crunch time.
Defensively he’s okay but it’s his turnovers and terrible shot selection in the fourth quarter that has cost OKC a lot of those games.
Given the success their teams have tasted, names like Kyle Lowry, Draymond Green and Damian Lillard deserved to be named. A decent case can also be made for James Harden, given the way he has single handedly carried a struggling Houston Rockets squad all through the season.