I'm very surprised that Isaiah Thomas hasn't received much MVP love in this discussion. Has there been anybody better in the fourth quarter in closing out games this season? And he also helped lead the Celtics to the #1 seed in the East. For the regular season, I think he is deserving of being in the top 3 discussion, alongside Westbrook and Harden. Believe me, I'm not trying to be a homer when bringing up IT. The last time I thought a Celtics player deserved to win the MVP was Garnett in 2008, but the voters decided to give Kobe the lifetime achievement MVP award.
As for the debate between Westbrook and Harden, I have to go with Westbrook. The debate for Harden seems to rest on team success versus Westbrook and his team. If that's the case, then shouldn't we also look at the teams offseason changes? I think too many people are overlooking the addition of head coach Mike D'Antoni and the offensive philosophy he brought to that team. I know D'Antoni gets a lot of credit for making Harden the point guard, but Harden was a ball hogging player long before the position change. The only difference seems to be D'Antoni convincing Harden to pass the [dang] ball. On the other hand, OKC simply couldn't recover from the offseason shock of losing a top 3 player in the world, and properly rebuilding the team on the fly. OKC replaced a reliable 28-30 ppg scorer in Durant with Andre Roberson's 6.6 ppg (who may also be the worst free throw shooter I have ever seen). The fact that OKC only won 8 games fewer than last season, seems pretty amazing to me given the circumstances.