I guess I'm just missing the boat here on where its egregious if Westbrook wins the MVP? I certainly don't think it'd go down as one of more controversial MVPs in league history. Some people are really getting their panties in a bunch about this possibility.
(And its probably not a question of "if, it's "when")
Personally I think about what Bill Simmons wrote about "the secret" of basketball.
"The secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball."
Here’s what Isiah Thomas meant: the guys who have the best numbers don’t always make the best team. Now here’s an excerpt from the book where Simmons talks about a trade the Detroit Pistons made:
"Maybe Dantley was a better player than Aguirre, but Aguirre was a better fit for the 1989 Pistons. If they didn’t make that deal, they wouldn’t have won the championship. It was a people trade, not a basketball trade.And that’s what Isiah learned while following those Lakers and Celtics teams around: it wasn’t about basketball.Those teams were loaded with talented players, yes, but that’s not the only reason they won. They won because they liked each other, knew their roles, ignored statistics, and valued winning over everything else."
Simmons went on to say the following:
"Fans overlook The Secret completely. Nobody writes about The Secret because of a general lack of sophistication about basketball; even the latest ‘revolution’ of basketball statistics centers more around evaluating players against one another over capturing their effect on a team.Numbers help, but only to a certain degree. You still have to watch the games.The fans don’t get it. Actually, it goes deeper than that—I’m not sure who gets it. We measure players by numbers, only the playoffs roll around and teams that play together, kill themselves defensively, sacrifice personal success and ignore statistics invariably win the title. We have trouble processing the ‘teamwork over talent’ thing. But how do you keep stats for ‘best chemistry’ and ‘most unselfish’ or even ‘most tangible and consistent effect on a group of teammates’? It’s impossible. That’s why we struggle to comprehend professional basketball."
And here’s a quote from NBA legend Bill Russell:
"I always thought that the most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I made my teammates play."
This, to me, is why Tim Duncan had a better career and was a better player at his peak than Kobe Bryant, hands down. It's not even close, to be honest.
And that is also why I think you've got to take team success and chemistry into account when you are looking at who should be considered "most valuable" in any given season. The award should not just be about who racks up the most counting stats. It should be about who actually elevates their team.
Russ has had an amazing season, but if I'm being perfectly honest I think his team did more to help him achieve those stats than he did to help his team play the best basketball they could play. Does that make sense? I want to really emphasize that, because it's really the heart of my argument on Russ. I've tried to articulate that notion in a few different ways in this thread.
Harden and Kawhi both played on teams with better roster balance and cohesion, with offensive systems that maximized the strengths of the players in them.
However, I think Russ is also a product of a system -- that is, a system in which he does everything and his teammates clean up whatever mess is left over. I think that as KG's Knee pointed out, Russ is in large part the cause of that state of affairs. The Thunder were left with no stars but Russ, and they know exactly how Russ would want to play: with the ball in his hands always, doing everything for the team while he was on the floor.
I think they were probably as good this year as they possibly could be playing that style. I don't agree that that style was the best way they could achieve success as a team. But it certainly maximized Russ's ability to put up counting stats.
If you want to argue for Kawhi, I won't argue much. He's the best two way player on the second best team in the league in terms of record.
Harden I think did more than any other individual player this season to lift his team offensively. He made his teammates better. Just look at the seasons that Nene and Capela had, not to mention Anderson, Gordon, and Ariza.
Steph Curry should still be in this conversation, in my opinion, because he's every bit as good this year as he was in 2015, and his team was the clear cut best team in the league from start to finish. The fact that Durant joined his team this year knocked him out of the running, though I'm not sure that's fair. He's still the best player on the best team. He still breaks the game when he's on the floor because of his unreal shooting and ball handling.
In any case, to me Russ is maybe the 5th or 6th best player in the world, and he didn't really make his teammates better, nor does his presence on the floor make his team a threat to win a playoff series. Therefore, he's not my first or second choice for MVP.