Stephen Curry won the 2015 Most Valuable Player award by a landslide, receiving 100 of 130 first place votes. Second-place finisher James Harden still feels he was snubbed, and he says he’s using that disappointment as motivation this season. In an interview with NBA.com’s Fran Blinebury, Harden said that he “100 percent” deserved the award.
Via NBA.com:
“I am the best player in the league. I believe that. I thought I was last year, too. I know I was the MVP. That’s 100 percent given all the things that happened last season…. Credit the Golden State Warriors for an unbelievable year. They had an unbelievable team, coaching staff, everything. But that award means most valuable to your team. We finished second in the West, which nobody thought we were going to do at the beginning of the year even when everybody was healthy. We were near the top in having the most injuries. We won our division in a division where every single team made the playoffs. There’s so many factors. I led the league in total points scored, minutes played. Like I said, I’m not taking anything away from Steph, but I felt I deserved the Most Valuable Player.”
If the MVP award solely came down to individual statistics, Harden has a pretty good argument.
Harden: 81 games started, 36.8 minutes per game, 27.4 points per game on 44% shooting, 7.0 assists per game, 5.7 rebounds per game, 1.9 steals per game
Curry: 80 games started, 32.7 minutes per game, 23.8 points per game on 48% shooting, 7.7 assists per game, 4.3 rebounds per game, 2.0 steals per game
Harden played more minutes and was slightly less efficient than Curry, but the Rockets relied on Harden to carry the team more than the Warriors relied on Curry on a nightly basis. The Rockets finished second in the Western Conference despite Dwight Howard missing 41 games in the regular season, and that’s mostly because of Harden.
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Curry, meanwhile, was the best player on the best team in the league, and a team that won 67 games. The Warriors had the fifth-best winning percentage of any team in NBA history. Whether you side with Curry or Harden likely comes down to how willing you are to reward team success versus individual stats. In 2015 the voters sided with Curry, but that could change this season — especially if Anthony Davis puts up superhuman numbers on a mediocre Pelicans team.
