It happens most nights he is at the AT&T Center, often without fail. Sometimes it happens on the road, if enough Spurs fans are present. Once this season, it happened in Mexico City.

Late in a game, Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard will stride to the free-throw line, and a chorus will rain down.

“M-V-P! M-V-P!”

It is during these moments — and usually only during these moments — that Leonard is aware there is an NBA MVP race going on at all.

“I don’t watch ESPN,” Leonard said. “I don’t listen to the radio. I just go home with my family.”

This week, beginning Monday night against James Harden’s Houston Rockets, the MVP chase comes to Leonard’s doorstep.

A dazzling, crafty scorer who also leads the NBA in assists, Harden is considered the front-runner for the award after transforming the Rockets into genuine Western Conference contenders.

Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, whose Thunder welcome the Spurs to Chesapeake Energy Arena on Thursday, is on pace to join Oscar Robertson as the only players in NBA history to average a triple-double.

More Information Most Valuable Battle Over the past few weeks, Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard has risen the ranks in the MVP race. This week, he will face a handful of his competitors head-to-head. Here is a glance handicapping the race down the home stretch: James Harden, Houston The case for: Already an All-Star, Harden has blossomed as the de facto point guard in coach Mike D’Antoni’s fun and gun system. He ranks third in the league in scoring at 28.8 points per game and leads the NBA in assists with 11.3 per game. Winners of 41 games last season, the Rockets are 44-19 and bona fide contenders in the Western Conference. The case against: Defense matters, or it should, and although Harden has amplified his interest on that end of the floor, he will never win votes for the NBA’s All-Defense team. It’s also fair to wonder how much of the Rockets’ rise is due to Harden and how much is due to D’Antoni. It could be argued Harden is not the MVP as much as D’Antoni is Coach of the Year. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City The case for: In his first season untethered from Kevin Durant, Westbrook is unleashing the sort of box score-stuffing season not seen since JFK was in office. He is averaging a league-high 31.7 points, 10.1 assists and 10.7 rebounds per game, vying to become only the second player in NBA annals to average a triple double for a season. Oscar Robertson was the other, in 1961-62. The case against: Team success is a factor, and although the Thunder are probably better than most believed they would be after Durant high-tailed it for Golden State, they’re still seventh in the West. There is no precedent for an MVP coming from so low on the playoff bracket. Kawhi Leonard, Spurs The case for: Again, defense matters. A two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, Leonard might be the top perimeter defender in the league. Combine that with a scoring averaging of 26.1 points per game and 22 30-point outings — numbers even the great Tim Duncan never reached — and Leonard could be the most complete two-way player in the field. In their first year after Duncan, the Spurs are 48-13 with one All-Star on the roster — Leonard. He is carrying a team that still has better than a puncher’s chance of grasping a No. 1 seed. The case against: There isn’t much of one, except that other players are good too. Voters who prefer sparkling offensive stats will gravitate toward Harden’s scoring binges or Westbrook’s pursuit of statistical history. LeBron James, Cleveland The case for: He’s LeBron James, still the consensus best player on the planet. The King hasn’t won since 2013, which seems egregious. Like Leonard, James is a force on both ends of the court and has once again positioned his team as a championship contender, if not the outright favorite. The Cavs are winless in four games James has missed this season. The case against: His numbers aren’t as dazzling as Harden’s or Westbrook’s. He also has an All-Star sidekick in Kyrie Irving to help carry the load. Others on the radar Stephen Curry, Golden State: Don’t sleep on the two-time reigning NBA MVP, especially now that he has to do more heavy lifting with Durant sidelined. Isaiah Thomas, Boston: The mighty mite and former No. 60 pick in the draft is the NBA’s second-leading scorer at 29.4 points per game and has emerged as the game’s most feared fourth-quarter marksman. Jeff McDonald

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Two-time MVP Stephen Curry, something of an afterthought in this year’s race, brings his Golden State Warriors to the AT&T Center on Saturday.

Later this month, Leonard and the Spurs will get a look at four-time winner LeBron James when Cleveland comes to town March 27.

If you think Leonard is eyeing the week to come as a platform from which to launch a final MVP push, you don’t know Leonard.

“We’re just trying to get better as a team, keep moving forward,” said Leonard, who is averaging 32 points, nine rebounds and four steals in four March games. “We’re thinking about ourselves, really, not who we’re about to play against.”

Last year’s runner-up to Curry for the Maurice Podoloff trophy, Leonard has of late begun to burnish his MVP credentials anyway.

He is averaging 26.1 points, the most for a Spurs player since David Robinson logged 27.6 per game during his MVP season of 1994-95.

Leonard has posted 22 30-point games, most in a season for any Spur except for Robinson and George Gervin.

He has done it while remaining one of the league’s most fearsome perimeter defenders, averaging nearly two steals per game and locking up an opponent’s best player each night.

Put another way, Leonard is a two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year in the throes of a better offensive season than the great Tim Duncan ever produced.

As the glittering box score lines have begun to pile up for Leonard, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has become coy about overly lauding his 25-year-old superstar.

“I try not to praise Kawhi too much,” Popovich said with a gleam. “He’s getting paid to do that.”

Even so, Popovich will not deny Leonard belongs at the epicenter of the MVP conversation.

In their first season without Duncan, the Spurs are 48-13 with a better-than-decent chance of stealing the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, and they have only one All-Star.

That’s Leonard.

“There’s so few of those people who play at that level at both ends,” Popovich said. “He’s earned a lot of respect and whatever accolades he gets, he’s earned it.”

Saturday’s 97-90 overtime victory over Minnesota provided ample evidence of Leonard’s dominance in both phases of the game.

He posted 34 points, 10 rebounds and six steals, becoming only the second Spurs player in history to accrue those totals. Alvin Robertson accomplished that against the Los Angeles Lakers in November of 1986.

That Leonard started Saturday 3 for 10, and entered the fourth quarter with only 14 points, was not lost on his Spurs teammates.

“He can make a bad night look really good quickly,” guard Danny Green said. “He can turn it on in a matter of seconds. Somehow, some way, he is going to find a rhythm.”

Though Leonard’s MVP push has heretofore flown under the radar, opposing coaches are well aware of his candidacy.

His “two-wayness” makes Leonard special.

“You don’t want to say Michael Jordan,” New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry said, “but it is that type of situation where you have a really, really good offensive player and a tremendous defensive player.

“He definitely has to be heavily in the conversation for MVP.”

For now, the award seems to be Harden’s to lose. If he does, it will probably be Westbrook who swipes it.

Leonard, despite his sterling resume, remains a dark horse.

If Leonard does end up winning his first NBA MVP award, however, this much is certain: Someone is going to have to find him to tell him about it.