well I think Giannis deserved it as well, and it’s not as blasphemous as you are making it out to be

I think he deserved it over Russ too. Like the triple double stat is cool and all, but Harden was just better.

I think the voters felt he far better than Giannis to the point where he deserved b2b MVPs and Giannis was the 2 seed, and Harden the 4 seed.

You must’ve not been watching those teams if you thought CP3, Eric Gordon, Dwight, et al. were not doing anything on offense.

Harden got his guys paid. He’s a great floor raiser and elevator. That’s without question.

The issue is that playstyle is harder to pull off in playoffs, and he only had the personnel to do it during the CP3 stint.

Your post lost all credence when you inserted Lillard. He’s a far worse facilitator than Harden.

Curry obviously has great gravity, but Harden’s passing is absolutely phenomenal and definitely better than Steph’s. He averaged 8 assists a game for his whole Rockets tenure.

Impact metrics are available, frequently used by analysts, front offices, some fans, and yea prime Harden’s impact was comparable to Curry and swamps Lillards lol

2015 to 2020 he was 100th percentile in ORAPM and O-DPM, and led the league in EPM twice

I never bought this lesser impact than curry argument. Someone with a better grasp of advanced stats should post relevant metrics on creating good looks for teammates.

But without that, even a casual observer can see that it’s about context: one had 4 arguably prime HoFs flanking him, while the other was encouraged by coach MDA to be the entire offense (with Gordon/CP3 sometimes) because it was our best option.

It’s notable he led or nearly led the league in assists a few years, so he wasn’t a ball hog. And when he played with other offensive leads, he was more than willing to play second fiddle.

By RAPM, an advanced stat which doesn’t take into account any box score stats (and is the best in big samples), Harden does look like a great in the regular season. He falls short of Curry, who looks like the best offensive player of the century, but is in the same ballpark as Kobe, Wade, SGA, Westbrook and Lillard.

Part of curry’s success was playing for the warriors and not the rockets lol 

“easily”

IDK about easily and idk about best player for 4-5 years either, love Harden though. 2017 was definitely stolen though, and it’s hilarious how the flip flopped the criteria for those years, first in 2017, it was OMG Triple Double even though Harden had team success, and then when Harden had stats, it became Giannis had Team Success, even though Harden led a group of bums, plus a washed CP3 1 win away from the 2 seed.

He definitely should’ve won in 2017, the betting odds preseason had OKC winning more games than the Rockets but the narrative is somehow Russ dragged a bunch of bums

I think he’d die from exhaustion If he put more effort offball after having the ball in his hands scoring 36 a game with 8 assists, and also getting steals 

Luka led a team to the Finals.

How? I actually think harden is underrated by the masses but in the end he’ll likely be a 1x mvp with zero rings. Luka is 1 mvp off of that and has a finals appearance as the main star

I’m pretty sure Luka already has the same amount of 1st team all-nba selections.

Even if Luka stopped now I wouldn’t call it a poor man’s version, they’re already extremely similar with Luka being a better playoff performer without the MVP

Luka has already eclipsed harden in the playoffs atleast

never missed playoffs and every team he has joined got better in the time he was there.

but rings i guess

The Rockets were 3rd in wins in his tenure behind the Warriors and Spurs, but sure.