Westbrook solidifies his case for NBA MVP

Westbrook went into the 2016-17 season with a chip on his shoulder after his former teammate and 2014 MVP, Kevin Durant, joined the Golden State Warriors in the off-season. Last year, the Oklahoma City Thunder gave up a 3-1 lead in the playoffs to the Warriors, which made the departure even more painful and personal. Durant decided to not tell Westbrook about his final decision before announcing it to the public. Everyone anticipated how Westbrook was planning to inflict vengeance on Durant and the entire league—but no one knew he’d achieve such greatness.

A player hasn’t successfully averaged a triple double since the 1961-62 NBA season. A triple double is achieved when a player records double digit numbers in three different statistics, while playing an exhibition game. For example, a player would need to have at least 10 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds in one game to earn this accomplishment.
Most players are lucky to do this once a year, but Westbrook set a record by accomplishing this feat an incredible 42 times. It was widely believed to be impossible for another player to obtain 40 triple doubles again.

The next closest player this season was Harden with a total of 22 triple doubles, which would have been impressive in almost any other NBA season. Westbrook acquired a triple double in more than half the playable games. Breaking a record that was considered unattainable and had been standing for 55 years earns Westbrook the respect for producing better individual performances than Harden.

You’d think Westbrook would be a shoo-in for the MVP award after breaking historic records, but there are more factors to the decision than just statistics.

Basketball is a team sport, after all; therefore, a team’s success at the end of the year is crucial for votes, since the most valuable player impacts his team’s final record. The Thunder finished the regular season as the sixth seed in the highly competitive Western Conference.

The Rockets would end up winning eight more games than the Thunder during the regular season, and would beat them four games to one in the first round of the playoffs. Some people believe Harden is automatically the better player than Westbrook and the clear cut candidate for the award, since the Rockets beat the Thunder in the playoffs. However, determining each player’s value based on the final score of a TEAM game would be improper judgement.

Each time the two played against one another in this year’s playoffs, Westbrook had the highest amount of points, rebounds, assists and steals a majority of the time. Harden only recorded more points than Westbrook twice and more assists only once out of the five times the two of them faced off. Even though the Rockets won the series, it’s clear that Westbrook outperformed Harden by posting triple doubles in four different games. The Rockets would end up losing in the next round of the playoffs to the San Antonio Spurs in six games.

With a chance to keep the series alive, Harden was given the final possession of the game to score the winning basket. Unfortunately, his shot would be rejected before the ball could even be released from his hands. This could have been a moment that would have created a greater story to Harden’s special season.Russell Westbrook had the entire NBA universe watching him this season and managed to perform under this immense pressure.
The public watched with prying eyes to see how the betrayal of his best friend and former teammate would impact his game.

He surpassed everyone’s expectations and transcended the point guard position in the NBA with his aggressive and dexterous style of play. Westbrook has clearly proven time and time again that he was the best player on any NBA court this season.