Halfway Through The NBA Season, Who Is The MVP?

As we arrive at the halfpoint point of this year's truncated NBA season the MVP race appears for all intents and purposes to be down to a two horse race: Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder and LeBron James of the Heat. If one were to look only at statistics than it would be LeBron in a runaway as the much-maligned superstar has been putting up the best numbers of his career averaging 28, 7 and 8 a game (pretty impressive considering this guy won back-to-back MVPs in his last two years in Cleveland). However in my opinion it's been Durant who has taken his game to another level this year.

The Durantula is currently second in the NBA is scoring at 27.7 a game (a shade ahead of LeBron) as well as averaging career highs in rebounds and assists (8.2 and 3.3 respectively) while turning the young Thunder (their 4 best players are all 23 years old or younger) into the favorites to win the Western Conference. Durant (who we should remember became the youngest player ever to win an NBA scoring title 2 years ago) has shown the biggest improvement in his scoring efficiency this season shooting nearly 52% from the field (his career average coming into the season was 46%) and has allowed his impressive supporting cast (SGs Russell Westbrook and James Harden, PF Serge Ibaka and C Kendrick Perkins) to excel and gel into one of most balanced offensive attacks we've seen in recent years to go along with their vastly improved defense thanks to Perkins and Ibaka's low-post dominace. As a result the Thunder have the best record in the NBA and should be served well thanks to this year's compact schedule that will benefit young and deep teams. The Thunder are the youngest and deepest contender in the league. Period.

I don't want to take anything away from what LeBron has been doing this year as the Heat's big three have stepped their game up as well after all the scrutiny they have faced since "The Decision." However LeBron's great numbers have been inflated by the fact that co-star Dwyane Wade missed a large portion of the season in the early going allowing LeBron more freedom on offense (Durant's running mate Westbrook has played every game this year and is dropping 23.4 points a game). However over the past 10 games it has been Wade and not LeBron who has lead Miami in scoring and while this might bode well for the Heat's NBA Championship aspirations it may very well be the factor that costs LeBron his 3rd MVP award.

Moving away from the numbers, I think Durant's humble nature and team-first attitude that will endear him to the MVP voters. If the second half of the season plays out like the first than I fully expect Kevin Durant to be named the NBA MVP, he's just that good. You only need to watch one OKC Thunder game to see that Durant does the things that we've all been hoping LeBron would do for the past 4 or 5 years. He's unselfish, is a knockdown outside shooter, is not overly concerned with his public image or "brand" as LeBron would call it and seems to do everything you want to see out of a Champion.

Obviously neither Durant nor LeBron has won an NBA title but what intrigues me most about this debate is that there is legitimately a 60% chance we see these two teams face off in the NBA Finals this year. Like it or not the Heat are the class of the Eastern Conference and the only team that could really battle them for the spot, the Chicago Bulls, are suffering through the injury woes of last season's MVP Derrick Rose and so far have not proven that they have improved to the level that would let them beat the Heat in a 7-game series (they got bounced by the Heat in 5 games in last year's conference finals). As a fan of watching great players be great I would like nothing more than to see the Thunder and Heat face off in the NBA Finals this year. I think that series would define which player and which team will be the class of the NBA for the next 5 or so years. Obviously I'd be pulling for Durant and co. but on the flip side that might be LeBron's last chance to establish a legacy of one of the NBA's greatest.