Why LeBron James, not James Harden, deserves MVP

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James has outplayed MVP-frontrunner James Harden this season.

What Houston Rockets guard James Harden does on the offensive end is phenomenal. He’s a stellar player who pads his Hall of Fame portfolio every season.

However, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James has been even more impressive on both sides of the ball. Forget being stellar, he’s like the sun to the Cavaliers’ solar system, keeping everything in orbit.

Separated by five years of age and six years of experience, James has been the picture of perfect health, appearing in all 73 games his team has played while Harden has appeared in 66 games, missing 8 games over the course of the season.

Speaking of health, while James has been a shining example of availability, he’s played without a secondary go-to player for 21 games this season, the number of games Kevin Love missed (the Cavs went 11-10 in these games). While Isaiah Thomas was supposed to be a part of a remodeled Big 3, his inefficiency (36.1 percent shooting from the field, 25.3 percent shooting from three-point range) and arrogance while in Cleveland held back his team in ways no other MVP candidate has had to deal with.

Harden had to play without his second-in-command for 13 games, with Chris Paul appearing in just 53 games this season. In the 21 games that Paul didn’t start, the Rockets went 14-7.

Looking at the Rockets’ ability to succeed with one star compared to the Cavaliers, it would seem like it’s evidence of how well the team can still play without Harden. In a lot of ways, that’s the logical afterthought. However, the issue with that rationale is the difference in teams’ overall health, chemistry and coaching.

To further paint the picture of the obstacles that James has had to lead his team through, the Cavaliers have had 17 different starting lineups this season thanks to trades and a rash of injuries. They’re even playing with a substitute head coach right now as Tyronn Lue deals with an undetermined, but fairly serious, illness.

The Rockets have had 12 different starting lineups. However, none were full-on overhauls to the five-man unit like the Cavaliers’. Furthermore, Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni has been healthy all season.

Speaking of Lue (who has won 122 games with one team) and D’Antoni (who has won 570 games with five teams), the difference in coaching experience has shown throughout the season.

Lue has battled his tendencies to be too friendly, consistently opting to play unfitting and underperforming personnel, like Derrick Rose and J.R. Smith, over players who earned minutes with stellar play, like Jose Calderon, Cedi Osman and Kyle Korver. Lineup decisions have had a lot to do with the Cavaliers struggles this season as well, with Lue stacking a multitude of aged, non-shooting or poor defensive players together in lineups and moving away from lineups proving to have worked at the same time.

As the season progresses, Lue has improved in that regard but for the bulk of the season, his in-game coaching decisions were holding the team back.

D’Antoni isn’t a perfect coach but his coaching has never held back the Rockets. As expected, he enhanced their offensive ability. Thanks to the addition of strong defensive personnel, the team has been solid on both sides of the ball.

Looking at their individual stats, Harden holds the edge in points per game (by 3.2 points per game), steals per game (by 0.3 points per game), three-point percentage (by 0.1 percent), free-throw percentage (by 13.8 percent), PER (by 1.3) and offensive box plus-minus (by 2.1).

[Editor’s note: Author considers win shares and offensive (and defensive) ratings to be largely team-based numbers.]

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/26/2018.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/26/2018.

Each of those stats, save for his steals per game average, are interconnected.

PER and offensive box plus-minus are largely measures of offensive efficacy. Harden’s three-point percentage and free-throw percentage would help lead to a higher points per game average. A higher scoring average leads to a higher PER and offensive box plus-minus.

James has had a bigger quantifiable impact in all other categories, while barely lagging behind in others.

The biggest differential in a category though? Field goal percentage. James is converting 55.0 percent of his attempts, while Harden is converting 44.8 percent of his. That’s more than a 10 percent gap.

When looking at James’ ability to make a significant impact in each category, moreso than Harden in most cases, and his scoring efficiency compared to Harden’s, it’s impossible to say Harden has had a better individual season than James.

Looking at the difference in team success, the Rockets’ 60 wins are far more impressive than the Cavaliers’ 44 wins. However, as previously mentioned, the Rockets team has had far fewer obstacles to their overall success. It’s easy to say the Cavs should be better than they are but if the 33-year-old James didn’t have such superb stats, this would be just a 30 to 40 win team.

That’s also true with his play in the last five minutes of games within five points, also known as “clutch” time.

James has the NBA’s highest scoring average in the clutch, with 4.4 points per game on 56.2 percent shooting from the field and 33.3 percent shooting from three. Harden averages 3.3 points per game in the clutch on 40.6 percent shooting from the field and 30.2 percent shooting from three.

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that the NBA MVP award belongs to Harden but it should be James’ to lose. He has been the best player all season and led his team through storms unmatched by any MVP candidate not named Anthony Davis. Had Davis not been outshined by teammate DeMarcus Cousins for the bulk of the season, he might have a decent MVP case over Harden himself.

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