Once again, we have an NBA MVP debate … only this time, it’s been ignited after the hardware was handed out to Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks superstar who led the franchise to the most wins in the league last season with 60.
But did the Greek Freak deserve the award?
The Houston Rockets “respectfully” disagreed on Twitter after the Greek Freak won, posting a series of tweets with facts and stats about James Harden, who finished with the seventh-most points per game in a single season with 36.1.
Let’s break it all down and see if Antetokounmpo or Harden should be the most valuable player of the 2018-19 season.
Statistics
Harden: 36.1 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 7.5 apg, 2.0 spg, 44.2 FG%, 36.8 3PT%
Antetokounmpo: 27.7 ppg, 12.5 rpg, 5.9 apg, 1.3 spg, 1.5 bpg, 57.8 FG%, 25.6 3PT%
Yes, Harden made history with his scoring and dishing, as the Rockets noted. But the Freak became just the second player in NBA history to average more than 27 ppg, 12 rpg, 5 apg and 1.4 bpg. The first? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1975-76. Pretty good company.
ADVANTAGE: Push
Advanced Stats
Harden: Led the league in Usage Percent, Win Shares, Offensive Win Shares, VORP. No. 15 in Defensive Win Shares
Antetokounmpo: Led the league in PER. Was second in VORP, Box Plus/Minus, Defensive Rating. No. 3 in Defensive Win Shares
I think the glaring thing here is the Freak’s impact on the defensive end, making him a two-way beast. No disrespect to Harden here — his defense has improved after all those videos of himself being a sieve on D. But this is where I think Giannis actually made a bigger impact.
ADVANTAGE: Antetokounmpo
Team
Harden: Played with Chris Paul, Eric Gordon, Clint Capela and P.J. Tucker.
Antetokounmpo: Played with Khris Middleton, Eric Bledsoe, Brook Lopez and Malcolm Brogdon.
This is where you play this game: Which team would have suffered more without its MVP candidate? I think the answer is the Bucks, but it’s not by much — the entire Rockets offense is based on Harden handling the ball in iso.
ADVANTAGE: Antetokounmpo (barely)
Narrative
Harden: Carried an underachieving Rockets team to the No. 4 seed a year after winning his first MVP.
Antetokounmpo: Was the centerpiece of the NBA’s best team.
As the Bucks star said, it’s all about winning:
I also kind of wonder if there’s a whiff of “but Harden’s a flopper!” versus “We’ve been waiting years for the Greek Freak to put it all together. Let’s celebrate that” here. Not that I believe either of those things, but I’m just taking a stab at the narrative, which counts.
ADVANTAGE: Antetokounmpo
So there you have it. The Greek Freak deserved the win.
