NBA MVP Power Rankings: Top 5 early season leaders
The latest edition of the NBA regular season has tipped off in thrilling fashion. With a plethora of new player-pairings and exciting matchups to look forward to, this year might turn out to be the most unpredictable in recent times.
Just to touch upon some storylines so far, the Golden State Warriors have been hit with major injuries, the Los Angeles Lakers lead the West with a five-game winning streak, while the Philadelphia 76ers remain the only unbeaten team in the league. Megastars like Anthony Davis & Kawhi Leonard have made themselves fairly comfortable playing in their latest threads, while the Houston Rockets apparently find it irksome to incorporate Russell Westbrook into their system smoothly
Now that we have over 10 days of basketball data to go through, it makes sense to skim through a bunch of early season leaders for the MVP hardware. Let's take a look at the top 5 individual performers so far, who have managed to open up an early cushion in the running to be the best.
#5 Damian Lillard
One can never count the Portland Trail Blazers out, considering they house one of the most explosive point guards in the league. It might be just six games but Damian Lillard has broken out in a major way for his team.
To list some of his stats this year, he is averaging 29.8 points, 7.8 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game thus far, all of which are career-highs by a respectable margin. Moreover, Logo Lillard is shooting a career-best 47.6% from the floor and over 40% from the deep as he carries the long-range shooting torch of the league in Stephen Curry's absence.
Along with being the prime facilitator on the Portland Trail Blazers' roster, Dame is managing to conjure offensive production that is third best on the league's standings. If his shots keep falling consistently at the current rate, the 29-year-old is projected to be a strong contender in the MVP discussion before All-Star break. Given some early adjustments (currently 0.500 in the West), Portland can easily make their way to the postseason riding on Dame's skillset.