James Harden finally won his first MVP in the 2018 season, beating LeBron James and Anthony Davis. He averaged 30.4 points, 8.8 assists, 5.4 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game and led the Houston Rockets to the Western Conference Finals.
James Harden finally gets his MVP! pic.twitter.com/w2chrOl4ET
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 26, 2018
He became the third Houston Rockets player to win the MVP award. Before him, Hakeem Olajuwon and Moses Malone won that award, and Moses Malone won 2 times. Harden set one more record and became 4th player in NBA history to average 30 points per game on a 65-win team. Truly it was a magical season for him.
James thoughts on winning MVP Award
During an interview, Harden expressed his thoughts and said that he deserved to win that award in 2017 and 2015, too. His exact words were:
I felt like I should have won last year too,I didn’t see a difference between this year and last year.
This wasn’t the first time that Harden said such things; during 2015, Harden also expressed his disappointment in not winning the MVP award. He lost to Stephen Curry and ended up at second number in the voting.
Again, in 2017, James Harden didn’t win the award, and this time he got fans’ support too. Russell Westbrook’s winning MVP was criticized by some NBA fans, and they felt Harden should have won it.
Not just fans but Stephen Curry also had the same opinion. In a conversation, he expressed his thoughts on choosing James Harden over Russell Westbrook. His exact words were:
You kind of have to reward the better team, I would think, record-wise,That’s just kind of going in the history of the MVP award. So, I think James will probably edge him out just off of that.
James Harden stats
2022-23 Stats
PTS
21.0
REB
6.1
AST
10.7
STL
1.2
BLK
0.5
2021-22 Stats
PTS
22.0
REB
7.7
AST
10.3
STL
1.2
BLK
0.2
2020-21 Stats
PTS
22.0
REB
7.7
AST
10.3
STL
1.2
BLK
0.2
James Harden has been phenomenal in the past seasons and proved himself to be one of the strongest in the league. Winning the MVP award was the cherry on the cake, but the real NBA fans recognized his talent, and he has been a topic of discussion for a long time now.
