With the NBA season heading into to the All-Star break, discussions are circulating around the league on who is the MVP? Many NBA fans and analysts are saying James Harden or Giannis Antetokounmpo are the clear-cut favorites, but unfortunately for the Beard and the Greek Freak there’s another guy taking the league by storm; that is Thunder superstar Forward Paul George.
George currently averages 28.7 PPG, 8 RPG, 4 APG, while shooting an incredible 41.3 percent from 3. PG 13 this season is the best two-way player in the NBA, he leads the league in steals at 2.3, he is currently 10th in the NBA in Defensive Rating, 4th in Defensive Win Shares. In an era of inflated stats and manipulation of rules Paul George brings his “A” game time-in and time-out and is only concerned about winning. So far this season he has a Net Rating of 12 points, which is higher than Giannis and 19.7 higher than Harden.
What Harden has been doing is overall impressive, but to what extinct? Yes, he has scored 30 points 31 games in a row, but plays no defense and one could argue that he doesn’t make his team better despite the high assist numbers. Harden has more isolations as a player than any other team in the league, also 88% of his field goals are unassisted. It’s basically Harden on the playground with a bunch of bad players on a bad team so his numbers are inflated based on the large number of shots he attempts. Imagine if George shot the ball 30 plus times a game how many points would he average? Well in the 30’s just like Harden.
In my opinion Harden is stat hunting, for example, the other night in a blow-out win against the Mavericks, Harden was stuck at 23 points late in the fourth quarter and needed 7 points to keep his streak alive. Instead of D’Antoni keeping Harden out of the game, he subbed him back in to get 30. Seems to me Harden and the Rockets are worried about the wrong thing, especially knowing Harden plays the most minutes in the NBA and has a history of folding like a cheap tent in the playoffs when he is most needed and that is simply caused by fatigue.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are currently the 3rd seed in the West and only trail the Nuggets by one game, and by the end of the month they will surpass them as the 2nd best team in the conference. George is by far having the best season of his career, he is 12th in PER, 4th in Win Shares, and 10th in Box Plus/ Minus. With that being said, what’s even more impressive that he is 18th in usage rate but is one of the most efficient players in the league.
As for the Greek Freak, he is having a great season putting up 27.1 PPG, 12.6 RPG, 5.9 APG while shooting a remarkable 58.2 percent from the field. He also has the Bucks playing their best basketball in several decades. Despite his great numbers his team asks less of him because they are more complete than George’s Thunder team. Also, Giannis has a tough time closing out games because he cannot shoot, he currently shoots an abysmal 22.7 percent from 3. Look back to January 27th when Giannis was guarded by George, he held him to his worse shooting performance all year at 36.4 percent, George out played the Greek Freak by scoring 36 points on just 21 shots with 13 rebounds in a 118-112 victory.
There is a case to be made for all three of these guys to win the MVP this season, but Paul George should be the favorite. From him averaging 40 points in the month of February to his uncanny defense out of the 45 players who have contested 500 shots George ranks eighth in the league by holding shooters to 0.98 points per shot. The seven players ahead of him are big men, meaning he is the most effective- shot defending wing in the NBA.
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