1. James Harden
There was a pretty clear two-horse race for the top spot between Harden and Westbrook, and despite Westbrook's jaw-dropping triple-double averages, I felt obliged to give this spot to the well-deserving Houston guard. Off of his ridiculous stat lines of 28.5 points, 12.0 assists, 8.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 3.1 threes per game on efficient shooting splits of 45.2/36.2/84.5 (FG% / 3P% / FT%), the Rockets have suddenly found themselves at 27-9 (0.750), good for the West's third and the NBA's fourth-best record; a dramatic turnaround from 41-41 (0.500) last year. Anyways, breaking down the advanced statistics, it was very difficult to crown a winner for this list between Westbrook and Harden, who were miles ahead of the competition (top row is Harden):
There was a pretty clear two-horse race for the top spot between Harden and Westbrook, and despite Westbrook's jaw-dropping triple-double averages, I felt obliged to give this spot to the well-deserving Houston guard. Off of his ridiculous stat lines of 28.5 points, 12.0 assists, 8.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 3.1 threes per game on efficient shooting splits of 45.2/36.2/84.5 (FG% / 3P% / FT%), the Rockets have suddenly found themselves at 27-9 (0.750), good for the West's third and the NBA's fourth-best record; a dramatic turnaround from 41-41 (0.500) last year. Anyways, breaking down the advanced statistics, it was very difficult to crown a winner for this list between Westbrook and Harden, who were miles ahead of the competition (top row is Harden):
For me, however, the bottom line is always team wins -- it is the ultimate statistic in every sport, the culmination of all other statistics into one, all-important determiner of succcess. Houston may have the edge, but it's hard to say definitively that James Harden's supporting cast of Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, Trevor Ariza, and Clint Capela is too far ahead of Russell Westbrook's: Victor Oladipo, Enes Kanter, Steven Adams, Andre Roberson. Given that Harden has his Rockets 5.5 games ahead of Westbrook's Thunder (21-14; 0.600), I must give The Bearded One the benefit of the doubt by the slimmest of margins; nonetheless, both superstars have been absolutely outstanding and amazing to watch this season.
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