Russell Westbrook May Not Be the NBA's Best Player, But He Should Be MVP

Every NBA regular season ends the same way—with a debate about who is the league's Most Valuable Player. For some, the MVP is synonymous with the best player in the league. This is why we still complain about Karl Malone winning the award in 1997, or Charles Barkley in 1993, given that in both cases Michael Jordan was still at the height of his powers. For others, the award signals the most iconic season in the NBA. Allen Iverson's 2001 MVP comes to mind. No player was more iconic during that era of basketball, and Iverson that year was at his peak.

But the award isn't named for best or most iconic; it's named for the most valuable player, and that word—value—creates ambiguity. For me, this year's winner should be Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder, but it's not an easy decision, because value isn't an easy concept.

Human beings are awful at assigning value to things. There is a fairly low limit to the amount of information our brains are capable of processing, and we're even worse at extrapolating beyond that point. There's a famous example that Malcolm Gladwell uses in his book The Tipping Point. He asks readers how thick a piece of paper would be if it were folded in half 50 times. The human mind is incapable of correctly calculating anywhere close to the actual height, so it gives up and relies on a sort of gut instinct. Typical, seemingly intuitive estimates fall between a few feet and a few hundred feet, and they are nowhere near the correct answer—a paper folded 50 times would reach as high as the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Each year, NBA MVP voters are tasked with assigning value to something that requires calculations and estimates far greater than the human mind can fathom on its own. You have thirty teams with five players each on the court playing 48-minute games 82 times per year, all of those players making hundreds of micro-decisions every minute that they are on the floor—and in the end, we're supposed to come up with an answer for which individual added the most value, all while trying to compensate for our own limitations and biases.

It's an impossible task, and one that is designed to create controversy. Some seasons, these calculations seem simple. In 2013, LeBron James was so clearly the best player on both ends of the floor that there wasn't much need for splitting hairs or crunching numbers. When he played, his team won and nobody could stop him. In most seasons, including this one, the answer is much less clear. We have to make very flawed judgments based on the elusive concept of value.

In my mind, Westbrook is this season's MVP. Is it an open-and-shut case? Not exactly. Let's explore.

When you look back at NBA history, certain seasons are inextricably linked to certain memories. In 1998, for example, Jordan won his sixth title with the Chicago Bulls, and then retired. (We all will continue to collectively pretend this didn't happen.) Other things happened that year, but that season's legacy starts and stops with the story of the league's biggest star.

This season will be remembered as the year Westbrook averaged a triple-double. Full stop. Lots of other things happened, but none really compare. In fact, not only did Westbrook average a triple-double and break a 55-year-old record for the most triple-doubles in a season—accomplishments we may wait decades to see eclipsed—but he also led the league in scoring. As longtime basketball writer Jack McCallum put it:

MVP voting shouldn't be about numbers. But, man, Westbrook made it hard NOT to make it about numbers, didn't he?

— Jack McCallum (@McCallum12)April 10, 2017

There's no denying that Westbrook padded his stats. Indeed, there are plenty of videos detailing some of the egregious efforts he and his teammates undertook to get him a few extra rebounds and assists. Still, the real question is this: What value did those padded stats provide to the Thunder, and at what cost?

Many of the complaints about Westbrook's stat padding have centered on the fact that he leads the league in both rebounds off of free throws and uncontested rebounds, but those rebounds sometimes have a very specific value to the Thunder's offense. Westbrook leads the league in fast break points per game. Entire defensive game plans are centered on stopping Westbrook from getting a head of steam in transition; by grabbing more rebounds, he's able to turn more possessions into fast breaks. Just watch:

By itself, this doesn't mean that Westbrook's stat padding is actually a good thing, but it shows that the cost and value of padding his stats is not perfectly clear.

The Thunder are 12.5 points per 100 possessions better when Westbrook is on the court than when he is on the bench. That is a huge number, and appears to be indicative of how valuable he is to this team. Oklahoma City is an above .500 team when Westbrook is on the court, and among the league's worst when he isn't.

On the other hand, context counts. The Thunder weren't designed to function without Westbrook. Every player on the roster was added to complement his skill set. In a very real sense, the team was created to help Westbrook average a triple-double, and the cost of that is, well, being crummy without him.

The Thunder have several above-average defenders to help carry the load while Westbrook roams and rests. On the offensive end, the team lacks elite secondary playmakers but has plenty of above-average rebounders. Between points and assists, Westbrook creates 55.5 points per game for Oklahoma City; Victor Oladipo is second on the team with 22.1. The Thunder have a Westbrook–sized hole in the roster that only he can fill. Should he be penalized or rewarded for playing with a group that is designed to make him look good and collect stats?

Westbrook is as quick and as tireless as anyone in the NBA, both in the open court and in tiny spaces. He can go from zero to 60 and then back down to zero quicker than anyone since pre-baseball sabbatical Jordan. This skill is especially useful in today's pick-and-roll-heavy league, where even the most mobile bigs look foolish trying to hedge or show on a ball screen against him. Just look at how quickly Westbrook changes direction to split the double-team:

While Westbrook is the most unstoppable player in the league, he doesn't always do things worth stopping. Game after game, he makes plays that no one else could, and mistakes that no superstar should. He's third in the league in assists per game and second in turnovers—and those turnovers are often of the absurd variety. Several times per game, he'll make passes that fly directly into the hands of a waiting defender or miss a wide-open target to send the ball out of bounds. He is, quite possibly, the most mistake-prone superstar in NBA history.

Yet despite his many flaws, Westbrook is still able to dominate games on most nights. Some teams, like the Denver Nuggets, don't have anyone who can contain Westbrook for a single possession. Other teams have defenders who can contain Westbrook for minutes or even quarters at a time, but no one can fully shut him down, because nobody plays quite like Westbrook. Fellow MVP candidates LeBron James and James Harden find weaknesses in opposing defenses, and cut through them like a scalpel. Westbrook blows through those same defenses like a wrecking ball, with even the best defensive game plans crumbling before his sheer speed and will.

After breaking Oscar Robertson's triple-double record on Sunday night, Westbrook told the media, "I only know one way to play. Honestly. I don't know any other way to play."

Most basketball fans would agree with that statement, and all of the implications that come with it. Let Russ be Russ is the motto of Westbrook fandom, but the truth is, there's no "letting" Westbrook be anything at all. He is who he is, and that's all he can be. Some nights, that means leading his team to victory. Other nights, it means burying them in defeat.

Westbrook is a thrilling pleasure to watch, but there is a ceiling to his style of play. Kobe Bryant played a similar brand of basketball in 2006, when he set an NBA record in USG%, scored 81 points in one game, 62 points through three quarters in another, and averaged more than 43 points per game for the entire month of January. The 2006 Los Angeles Lakers, like Westbrook's Thunder, were not a serious contender.

This season, Westbrook is set to shatter that USG% record and will make his own mark on the NBA record books. At the same time, the Thunder will finish with roughly 45 wins and enter the first round of the playoffs as underdogs, with virtually no shot at making it to the Finals. It's easy to think that Westbrook, circa 2017, could do more with a better supporting cast—but the opposite is more likely the case. Basketball is a team sport, and it wasn't designed to rely on one player so heavily. There's no precedent for a team having title-level success when one player is responsible for so much of its production on one end of the floor.

Westbrook isn't the best player in the NBA. It's unclear if he added more value to his team than any of the other MVP candidates. On the other hand, he has been the story of the season. He checks enough statistical boxes to warrant MVP consideration. If he wins, no one will begrudge giving him the award in June (presumably after the Thunder have been eliminated from the playoffs), and no one will regret it after a year, or ten. Personally, the fact that Westbrook is even in the most valuable conversation is enough for me to say that he deserves the award—just so long as we remember that value is murky concept, and one we'll never stop debating.

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