Russell Westbrook ‘You, the real MVP’

MVP Watch:

Pundits, analysts, and fans have varying opinions on whether Westbrook deserves to win this season’s Most Valuable Player. For those who fall into giving the award to Harden, Leonard or James let’s see if I can shed some light on why Westbrook is more deserving.

Although LeBron James could fairly be considered the best player in the Association the fact Cleveland rank 23rd defensively on the season and 29th since the All-Star break should rule him out.  For those who want to point to James’ teammates as the issue the chart below demonstrates this isn’t necessarily the case:

 On – Off Court Rating:

Triple-Double Factor:

If you belong in the group, who believe the triple-doubles aren’t a factor- feast on this…

OKC win over 80% of their games when Westbrook notches a triple-double (81.5 percent) versus 33.3 percent when he doesn’t.  To put this in perspective, when Harden accomplishes the feat the Rockets win 75 percent of the time when he doesn’t the Rockets have a 65.4 win percentage. This stat speaks to how much more talent Harden has to work with.

In the Clutch:

Shouldn’t an MVP winner be the best player on the court during clutch time?  Though LeBron definitely excels in this category, perhaps the more important take away is how poorly Harden performs in the clutch.

Dive in deeper to recognize Westbrook is far superior to his counterparts in Clutch time:

Total Points Added:

TPA is another solid argument in which Westbrook wins by a landslide. Hence, a simple explanation as per NBA Math for TPA is :

The concept of total points added (TPA), isn’t particularly complicated. We’re looking at both defensive and offensive effectiveness on a per-possession basis while also incorporating the amount of playing time the contributor in question receives.

NBA Math provides a more intensive explanation here

And the numbers point to Westbrook being far superior on both sides of the court. Anyone still considering Isaiah Thomas as a potential candidate should take a close look at his defensive shortcomings. The key takeaway here is to look at Defensive Player of the Year candidates Draymond Green and Rudy Gobert, then compare their defensive points added total to Westbrook.

Uncontested Rebounds:

Want to serve up stat-padding or uncontested rebounds as an excuse? If so, you’ll need to penalize the top four parties:

Other Tangible Westbrook Evidence:

Scoring: Factor in Westbrook is leading the league in scoring producing 31.8 points per game. It’s also the first time in his career he’s averaged over 30 points.

Value Over Replacement Player:

Aside from performing in the clutch (from my personal perspective), this stat should garner heavyweight. Westbrook not only leads the NBA in VORP this year (11.1)  he’s fourth all-time.

Other Key Categories:

• PER – player efficiency rating- 1st (30.6)
• assist percentage – 1st (56.9 percent)
• assists per game – 3rd (10.4)
• rebounds – 10th Yet another impressive category. Examine the to 15 players on this list and note Westbrook is the only guard in the mix.

• Box plus-minus (and offensive box plus-minus) 1st
• Defensive box plus-minus – 1st
• offensive win shares  – 8th (7.8)
• defensive win shares – 9th(4.1)