With the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award race looking more and more like a two-man battle between James Harden and Russell Westbrook as the season winds down, the Houston Rockets are pulling out all the stops.
After the Rockets defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder by the final of 137-125 on Sunday, their team Twitter account sent a Drake-themed graphic touting Harden’s MVP candidacy based around wins over Westbrook’s candidacy based around triple-doubles.
An #MVP performance by @JHarden13 today. pic.twitter.com/208UKAbd6k
— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) March 26, 2017
While Westbrook did finish with 39 points, 11 rebounds, and 13 assists for his 36th triple-double of the year (putting him now just five short of Oscar Robertson for the all-time single-season record), Harden’s 22 points, five rebounds, and 12 assists helped lead Houston to the victory, giving them a whopping 9.5 game lead over the Thunder in the standings.
Though there was some humor in the tweet, the Rockets are smart to advocate for the importance of winning basketball over averaging a triple-double for the season, which, though historically significant, is a purely statistical (and arguably arbitrary) measure of value. Their general manager has been doing the same lately (as seen here), but it may nonetheless be difficult to project a winner with Westbrook’s Thunder still sixth in the West as he also leads the entire league in scoring with 31.2 points per game.
