LeBron James will try to make a push for his fifth MVP award.
Credit: @SInow
After taking a week off for the NBA All-Star festivities, the league is back in action, and there is plenty to look forward to as the season enters the home stretch. With only a little over a month left of the regular season, the playoff picture has already been taking shape, and we’ll get even more clarity in the coming weeks. Looking at the Western Conference, it will be interesting to see if the red-hot Utah Jazz can keep their impressive play going and if the depleted Los Angeles Clippers can squeeze their way into one of the last playoff spots. In the Eastern Conference, the playoff picture looks to be a bit more stable towards the bottom, but it will be fun to see if the Blake Griffin-led Detroit Pistons can take a playoff spot away from the Miami Heat or Philadelphia 76ers.
Apart from the ever-changing playoff picture, there is going to be a lot of debate over who should win the most valuable player award at the end of the season. Many fingers will point toward LeBron James winning the award for the fifth time in his career, but players like James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo are playing at such an elite level, there are just as deserving of the title.
It is going to be an interesting month of March as teams battle for playoff spots and players prove they are the best on the court. Here are some of the top headlines in the second half of NBA action:
Can the Utah Jazz Continue Their Recent Success?
The Utah Jazz have been one of the hottest teams in the league coming off of an 11-game winning streak. Unfortunately for Jazz fans, the team was pummeled by the Portland Trail Blazers on Feb. 24 ending their impressive streak. The hope is that the relatively young team won’t let the loss affect them too much.
Looking at the team’s entire season, the numbers don’t look all that impressive: a 31-30 record and only the 25th highest scoring team overall. What sets the Jazz apart is the third best defense in the league, behind Boston and San Antonio, that’s pretty good company to be in. The Jazz, as a team, also have the eighth highest three-point percentage and in February have improved their scoring differential to +4.6 which is good for top-11 in the league.
The team has been led by rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell who is also the winner of the 2018 Slam Dunk Contest. Mitchell along with players like Rodney Hood, Rudy Gobert, and Ricky Rubio will look to lead the Jazz to the NBA playoffs.
The Rockets May Very Well Be the Best Team in the NBA
Ever since Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors, the Houston Rockets haven’t had a fair chance to take the crown as the best team in the NBA, let alone the Western Conference. Not that too much has changed over the last few months for either team, but the Warriors have not been playing their best basketball at a time where the Rockets seem to be unstoppable. As far as overall scoring goes, Golden State is the best in the league, but Houston is a close second and also has the highest scoring differential in the league. Sorry to keep comparing the Rockets and the Warriors, but one of the teams is basically a lock to make the NBA finals, and there aren’t any other teams out there that look like they’ll be able to beat one of these super teams in a seven-game series. That’s the sad part about the NBA, unlike many of the other major sports, it isn’t a completely level playing field. Teams like Houston, Golden State, and Cleveland sometimes seem destined to make it to the finals, with the other teams not standing much of a chance in the playoffs. Houston features one of the MVP frontrunners in James Harden supported by stars like Chris Paul and the emerging Clint Capela. Now in the midst of a 13-game win streak, the Rockets appear to be the hottest team going into one of the most important stretches of the season.
Race to the Finish for MVP Award
Unlike the potential NBA finals matchup, there are a lot of different players who could end up becoming the MVP when the season is all done. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s most likely that the Rockets or the Warriors will be representing the Western Conference in the finals, but as of now there really isn’t a clear indication of who the league’s most valuable player will be.
For the first few months of the season, there was little doubt in anyone’s mind that King James was going to walk away from the season with the title. James started off the season looking like the player he always has been, but a lot of people ended up being down on him a bit when the Cavaliers went 6-8 in January, and it seemed like the sky was falling. The 33-year-old small forward lost a lot of MVP buzz based on the performance of the team as a whole because the burden fell on his shoulders more than anyone else.
Now the new-look Cavs are playing fairly well in their short time together and hope has been brought back to Cleveland. In fact, James never really took a huge hit in production during the rough stretch; in January his per-game averages were 23.5 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 7.4 assists, a stat line that is still very good. Now the King is averaging a triple-double in February as of this writing and is leading Cleveland to make a big push over the final weeks.
The biggest threat to steal the MVP from LeBron may very well be James Harden. As mentioned earlier, the Rockets might be the best team in the league led by the best player in basketball. Harden is averaging an elite 31.3 points per game to go along with nine assists and five rebounds in each contest. “The Beard” may finally be able to win his long deserved MVP as long as he can keep up his production and hope LeBron James doesn’t have a crazy good final stretch, which is completely possible.
Other than Harden or James, the only other realistic option to win the MVP award is Giannis Antetokounmpo. The “Greek Freak” is an otherworldly talent whose physical ability is unmatched by anyone in the league. In just his fourth season, Antetokounmpo put up 33.7 points per game at the beginning of the season in October but is still averaging a double-double per game for the entire season. The Milwaukee Bucks led by Antetokounmpo are having themselves a nice season, but they won’t be getting the same praise given to teams like the Rockets or the Cavaliers, giving the Greek native a slight disadvantage compared to the other two players.
I believe that it will come down to LeBron James and James Harden in the end, but don’t count out Giannis Antetokounmpo either, he has been elite so far this season. The race to see who will win the MVP award is going to be almost as exciting as seeing which teams are going to make a final push before the playoffs begin. Whichever race you’re more excited about, there is no question that the next month or so of basketball is going to be very exciting.
