Bryan Mears' take:

Whatever you would want from an NBA MVP, James Harden has it. Per-game stats? How does 26.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 7.1 assists, and 2.0 steals sound? There are only two players ever to do that for a season -– Michael Jordan in the 1988-1989 season and LeBron James in the 2004-2005 season. Or perhaps you want advanced stats? Harden has those, too. He’s top five in win shares, VORP, WAR (first in the league in those three), RPM, BPM, and PER.

The argument is always how valuable a player is to their team. Obviously, right? Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe made a good point on their recent podcast that sometimes we value a player taking a team from good to great more than a player taking a team from great to historic, like Stephen Curry. My rebuttal: Harden isn’t taking a team from good to great. He’s taking a mediocre-to-bad Western Conference lottery team to homecourt advantage in the playoffs. Considering the craziness of the West, the difficulty level on such a task -– nearly impossible. Harden is your MVP.