Why Not Russ?

With the start of the NBA playoffs, one question remains from the regular season: who is this year's Most Valuable Player? It is obvious at this point that Houston Rockets point guard James Harden and Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook are the top two candidates to win the award. Both are qualified to win the award, but Russell Westbrook has been outstanding this year and deserves the MVP.

I must start off by describing the evolution of the MVP award and what it has become to me. Everyone has their own versions of how the MVP should be determined, but, to its definition, it's supposed to be given to the most valuable player to his team throughout the entire year. For example, during the 1962 season Wilt Chamberlin averaged 50 points and 25 rebounds and Oscar Robertson averaged a triple double and set an NBA record with 41 triple doubles, and neither of those two won the MVP because Bill Russell was the leader and best player on the championship winning Boston Celtics. By definition, that is how the MVP should be given out, and now a days, LeBron James not winning the award every year is the biggest show of this change. Stephen Curry won the MVP last year after having a historic season, but in the Finals LeBron showed exactly why he could win the award every year as he brought his Cavs team back from a 3-1 Finals deficit to take home Cleveland’s first championship. In my own words, the MVP is given to the player with the best regular season stats.

With that being said, Russell Westbrook is the most valuable player in the National Basketball Association for the 2016-2017 regular season. Westbrook finished the season averaging a triple double with 31.6 points, 10.4 assists, and 10.7 rebounds a game, all while taking a not very good Oklahoma City Thunder team to the playoffs as a six seed. In a season plagued with star players resting, Westbrook only missed one game and played his heart out for every single one. Some games brought a little more competitive fire than others, as we saw when Westbrook faced his former teammate, Kevin Durant, and the Golden State Warriors. Westbrook gave the fans an absolute show all season long, which ended in him setting the record for most triple doubles in a season, 42, which was set 55 years ago by Oscar Robertson. The game Westbrook broke the record, he solidified, in my eyes, why he is the MVP. After already clinching the sixth seed and already breaking the triple double record earlier in the game, Westbrook hit a deep three at the buzzer to beat the Denver Nuggets, which got some high praise from players all over the league. Dozens of players tweeted out that Westbrook should win the MVP and his play has been by far the best in the league this year, numbers wise. The argument could be made that James Harden has taken his team to a three seed in the West and that the MVP is about winning. I could not agree with that more, but let’s look at the team Westbrook is winning with. Steven Adams, Victor Oladipo, and Enes Kanter round out the other ‘stars’ on the team, and while they are all decent players, the team just is not good enough to be a sixth seed. The key factor: Russell’s play. If he was not playing out of his mind, the Thunder would probably have a top 10 pick in this year's draft. After losing superstar Kevin Durant to free agency, the Thunder could have easily just let this season go and tried again with some draft picks next year, but Westbrook had other plans in mind. He carried the Thunder team with his heart, his abilities, and his leadership to a better regular season than anyone would have expected and a record year for himself.

I also should mention that we cannot let this playoff series dictate what happens with the MVP race. There is a good chance the Thunder will lose the series in five games and Russ may struggle while James Harden plays very well, as we saw in Game 1. The playoffs are a different animal and the game planning is a lot more intense and more thought out than that of the regular season, which means the Rockets will have a strong plan for how to stop Westbrook every single game. The Rockets are just a better team than the Thunder, and this playoff series should not dictate the regular season MVP.

With my final thought, I will leave you with this: Russell Westbrook is the Most Valuable Player in the National Basketball Association for the 2016-2017 regular season.