The MVP is James Harden’s to lose, right? And Coach of the Year is a two-man race between Steve Kerr and Mike Budenholzer, correct?
Not so fast.
It is still February, the temperature here in New York is going to hit zero again tonight, and the number zero was an accurate reflection on the chances of Russell Westbrook contending for the MVP award and Stan Van Gundy being in the mix for Coach of the Year as recently as Christmas.
To refresh your memory, the Pistons were 5-23 on the day the kids unwrapped their presents, and Westbrook’s Oklahoma City Thunder were still climbing back from the 3-12 start to the season that had them at the bottom of the Western Conference standings.
Fast forward two months, and what do we have? Westbrook is coming off an MVP performance in the All-Star Game, and on Sunday he dropped 10 of his career-high 17 dimes in the second quarter of a romp over the Denver Nuggets. Even with Kevin Durant out for the past several games, the Thunder are not missing a beat as Westbrook has been averaging nearly 31 points in Durant’s absence, and you know who now ranks second in the NBA in scoring behind Harden? Yep, it’s Westbrook. Look for him to have prominent placement in the next version of my MVP rankings coming later this week.
As for Van Gundy, the turnaround he has engineered in Detroit is nothing short of remarkable. After soundly defeating the Washington Wizards on Sunday in Reggie Jackson’s debut for his new team, the Pistons are only a half-game out of the eighth playoff spot in the East, chasing a Miami Heat team that just lost Chris Bosh for the season, as well as a Brooklyn Nets team that management tried to blow up prior to the trade deadline.
If Van Gundy gets the Pistons into the playoffs, and if the Hawks and Warriors go into any kind of a sustained slump, the Coach of the Year race is going to be much more than a two-man show.
More on Westbrook and Van Gundy in this interview with Noah Coslov of CineSport.