Basketball is at its best when it doesn’t make sense.

It didn’t make sense that Willis Reed played on a torn quad in game 7 of the 1970 finals. Nor did it make sense that Michael Jordan ended his Bulls career with a championship winning shot, or that Tracy McGrady scored 13 points in 33 seconds to lead the Rockets to a miraculous comeback win over the league’s most disciplined franchise, or that the Cavaliers came back from 3-1 down in 2016 against the greatest regular season team ever.

The greatest moments seem impossible, and for the impossible to be real simply doesn’t make sense.

It certainly didn’t make sense when Russell Westbrook pulled up from 36 feet to end Denver’s season on April 9, 2017.

The setup was textbook – the Thunder trailed by two, Westbrook had 47 points, and he had just secured his record 42nd triple double of the season. It was a moment to make history.

The execution was brilliant – Steven Adams swinging the ball off the inbound, turning Jamal Murray for one crucial moment, then Russ reeling the ball in with his right hand and immediately pulling up, as if he wasn’t 36 feet from the bucket, and Murray’s hand wasn’t waving in front of his face, and he wasn’t coldly crushing a team’s playoff dreams.

The buzzer and the away crowd roared in unison as the ball fell through the net in a rare nonpartisan moment in sports, when Nuggets fans’ and Westbrook haters’ pain and anger could be stored for later and greatness just had to be recognized.

That season was magic.

So magic that that game will always be remembered as the last of the Thunder’s season, and that shot as the finale to a great player’s magnum opus, even though Oklahoma City had two to go and would actually end the year on a loss to that same Denver team.

But, like the legend of the moment, Westbrook winning MVP didn’t make sense – in that he was simply not deserving.

In a brilliant race that year, Westbrook grabbed both the heart of the basketball world and the Maurice Podoloff trophy, earning 69 first place votes to lead James Harden (22), Kawhi Leonard (9), and Lebron James (1).

In the face of a compelling narrative and monstrous raw numbers, logic and precedent went out the window in this decision, and one of the great injustices in sports history ensued. In fact, since the moment it happened, I have declared this MVP the worst in NBA history.

If I had a ballot, I would’ve slotted Westbrook fourth.

How could I say this? The man averaged a 31 point triple double! Following the departure of his fellow superstar and close friend Kevin Durant, he persevered and made history! If you find the notion of his MVP being the worst ever absurd, feel free to deride me as a hater; but I’d much prefer you read through the argument, and then go at it.

I believe there are five fundamental shortcomings in Westbrook’s MVP case: lack of winning, inefficiency, defense, and the facts that neither triple doubles nor narrative should be a factor in the MVP discussion.

After exploring these five pillars, I’ll make the case for each of his main competitors for the award over him, then compare his selection to other MVPs often referenced as some of the “worst ever”.

Buckle up; here we go.

Winning

The 1961-62 NBA season featured many of the greatest individual performances in league history. Elgin Baylor casually averaged 38.3 points and 18.6 rebounds per outing while playing games only on weekends, as he served in the army during the week. Oscar Robertson posted a triple double average for the first time in league history, notching 30.8 points, 12.5 boards and 11.4 assists per game. Wilt Chamberlain scored a record 50.4 points and hauled in 25.7 rebounds a night.

Yet despite historic numbers from each of them, the trio finished fourth, third and second in MVP voting, respectively. The winner was Bill Russell, who averaged just 18.9 points per game, but led the Celtics to a league best 60 wins. In fact, it wasn’t even close – Russell earned 51 first place votes, while Wilt received nine, Robertson got 13 and Baylor ended up with three.

In the 58 years since this historic race, time and time again, this much has been made clear: few things are more fundamental to a player’s MVP candidacy than team success, and more often than not, a player cannot even enter the conversation without it.

From 1983 to 2016, 33 of 34 MVP winners played for a top two seeded team, and 28 finished with the best record in their conference. The average MVP won over 62 games, and only two won less than 551.

The only exception to the “top two seed rule” was Michael Jordan in 1988, whose Bulls were seeded third. En route to the award, Jordan averaged 35 points per game on absurdly efficient 53.5% shooting, was honored as one of just five guards to ever win defensive player of the year, and guided a team with Sam Vincent as its second leading scorer to 50 wins.

So, the bar to win MVP as something other than a top two seed was set: Jordan had to average the most points per game since Wilt Chamberlain (besides his own mark of 37.1 from the previous season), have one of the greatest defensive seasons ever and carry a rag tag supporting cast to contention, and he was still far from a consensus MVP choice, as he earned just 47 of 80 first place votes.

While Jordan essentially achieved basketball perfection in 1988, Westbrook was still tremendously flawed in 2016-17 (see the next four pillars), and did not, like Jordan, narrowly fall short of a top two seed. Instead, the Thunder finished as the sixth seed with 47 wins, equally close by record to the tanking eleventh seeded Mavericks as the second seeded Spurs.

Many will immediately jump at this criticism by pointing out Westbrook’s depleted supporting cast – yet this does not justify his lack of team success when it comes to the MVP discussion.

First, we must debunk the oft cited narrative that Westbrook carried the Thunder to unexpected heights. Before the season, Las Vegas set the Thunder’s win total over-under at 45.5 and they were widely expected to reach the playoffs, meaning they barely overachieved even with Westbrook’s efforts.

Believe it or not, there is a reason they were expected to, and ultimately did, make the playoffs beyond Russell Westbrook.

Although the Thunder’s supporting cast was not the caliber of the true elite teams in the West, it did feature Victor Oladipo, an athletic defensive dynamo who would receive all-NBA honors the following season, along with one of the best defensive centers in basketball and an elite roll man in Steven Adams, an all-defense member in Andre Roberson, and a dominant bench scorer in Enes Kanter.

Additionally, plenty of players have had spectacular individual seasons with weaker supporting casts and not been honored with MVP.

Even within the 2016-17 season there was a more impressive performance by a player with a mediocre supporting cast, as James Harden’s Rockets, who Vegas projected to win just 41.5 games, ended up winning 55 with Eric Gordon as their second best player.

In 2007-08, Lebron James averaged 30 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game and carried the Cavaliers to 45 wins and a four seed with a historically poor (and injured) supporting cast, as Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Drew Gooden and Sasha Pavlovic were his fellow teammates to start over half the games on the season. He finished fourth in MVP voting.

In 2005-06, Kobe Bryant averaged a relatively efficient 35.4 points per game, earned first team all-defense honors, and guided the Lakers to 45 wins and a seven seed with Smush Parker, Chris Mihm, Kwame Brown and Brian Cook starting at least half the games on the season – and finished fourth in MVP voting.

Allen Iverson may embody this precedent better than anyone, as for years he put up jaw dropping numbers in Philadelphia with miserable supporting casts, as his teams generally fought for low playoff seeds. In 2004-05, Iverson finished fifth in MVP voting as the 76ers won 43 games and earned the seventh seed with Marc Jackson as their second leading scorer, while AI averaged 30.7 points and 7.9 assists per game. Marc. Jackson.

In fact, although Iverson averaged over 30 points per game four times while in Philly, he had just one top three finish in MVP voting – in 2000-01, when he won the award as his 76ers won 56 games and finished as the top seed in the East, the only time an Iverson led squad ever earned a top two seed. For Iverson, years of huge numbers amounted to little recognition in the MVP conversation; but when he paired it with winning, he was rewarded.

In 2002-03, Pat Garrity scored the second most total points for the Magic, who won 42 games as Tracy McGrady averaged an efficient 32.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game to finish just fourth in the MVP race.

As is evident, there are myriad examples of players just within this century who put up unparalleled individual numbers and approximated the Thunder’s team success with supporting casts far weaker than Westbrook’s, yet not one of the four players listed above earned even a top three finish in MVP voting.

But, of course, if Lebron, Kobe and company aren’t enough, even Michael Jordan himself demonstrates this principle, as in 1986-87, he averaged 37.1 points per game and dragged a bunch of nobodies to the playoffs, but still was deemed undeserving. The next season, when he proved himself as a winner, was when he got his name on the Maurice Podoloff trophy.

Awards voters should be like Supreme Court justices. They use their best logic and the information at hand to ensure the proper outcome, and once they establish a precedent, they cannot simply violate it randomly.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened with Westbrook; his selection glaringly violates every modern precedent on MVP voting in regards to winning, and it marks one of several intellectual hoops that voters and fans jumped through to make him seem fit as an MVP.

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Efficiency

Part of what makes Westbrook’s MVP season so bizarre is that it occurred in the age of analytics, with fans and voters supposedly more aware than ever of the importance of efficiency over raw numbers.

In 2016-17, Westbrook played a style that was often brutal on the eyes, marked by extended possessions in which the ball never left his hand that often ended with him jacking up questionable shots.

Westbrook’s insistence to “do it all” every single possession amounted to both gaudy raw numbers and the highest single season usage rate2 ever at 41.65%, yet did no favors for his efficiency, where his numbers are sobering.

Westbrook shot 42.5% from the field, the second lowest mark for an MVP winner in 60 years, ahead of only Iverson in 2000-01. His 438 turnovers (5.4 per game) were the second most ever, trailing only James Harden from the same season.

These stats matter – they account for huge numbers of possessions given away between missed shots and turnovers, and they cannot be dismissed in the face of massive point, rebound and assist totals.

Some will attempt to diminish the significance of Westbrook’s inefficiency by pointing to the tremendous volume and degree of difficulty of his role, as he dominated the ball every moment he was on the floor, a taxing job that should logically correlate to a drop in efficiency.

Yet when compared to other extreme high volume players (including Harden from the same season, who blows Westbrook away in efficiency and scored just 2.5 points per game less on five fewer shots), Westbrook’s numbers are still historically bad.

Within 2016-17, of 38 players to attempt at least 1,000 field goals, Westbrook finished 37th in field goal percentage (42.5%), 35th in effective field goal percentage3 (47.6%), and 27th in true shooting percentage4 (55.4%). Additionally, his 34.3% shooting from three ranked 35th of 38 players to attempt at least 375 shots from deep.

Out of the top five MVP finishers that season (Westbrook, Harden, Lebron James, Kawhi Leonard and Isaiah Thomas), Westbrook finished dead last in FG%, 3P%, 2P%, EFG% and TS%. The only measure of efficiency in which he was not last was free throw percentage, where he finished fourth.

Yet perhaps, one might say, there is still a difference between the degree of difficulty for a typical star level player and those who are truly attempting a historic level of shots. Well, since 2010-11, a player has attempted at least 1,500 field goals in a single season 24 times5. Of those 24, Westbrook’s 2016-17 campaign ranks dead last in FG%, EFG% and 2P%, 19th in 3P% and 16th in TS%.

Narrowing the group down to truly the most voluminous of shooters in the past four decades, since 1979-80, just 14 players have attempted 1900 field goals in a season, a group in which Westbrook ranks 11th in EFG%, 12th in FG% and 2P%, and 9th in TS%.

No matter how you cut it, Westbrook was terribly inefficient, and that matters. Efficiency is, in many ways, the measure of a great player – it is the ability to maximize one’s opportunities and limit mistakes, and almost every legend in the modern era has excelled in it.

Westbrook opted instead to furiously dominate the ball, often taking his teammates out of the play and short circuiting his team’s offense in the rare moments when he did not have the ball, as he refused to move without it.

Westbrook’s inefficiency shows him to be the benefactor of extreme volume above all else, as in this regard, he pales in comparison to his competition and previous MVPS.

Defense

This category is not a disqualifier – there are certainly MVP winners and candidates throughout history (and even in this season) who struggled mightily on defense, but it is certainly significant, especially when the competition includes a candidate like reigning back to back defensive player of the year Kawhi Leonard. It’s also important because Westbrook was so bad on defense this year, which was often ignored.

Westbrook has almost always been perceived as a better defender than he truly is by the casual NBA fan. His natural athleticism and feist in his early years established that reputation, and it has been solidified by the narrative that he gives his all on every play, which is true – when he has the ball. In 2016-17, Westbrook was able to glide on this reputation with minimal punishment for his status as one of the absolute worst defensive guards in basketball.

Advanced defensive metrics, such as defensive rating and defensive win shares, will assert Westbrook had a strong defensive season in 2016-17, a laughable suggestion to anyone who watched him play consistently. The reason for this is twofold: these metrics still can’t quite account for individual defensive impact, and they therefore overvalue both the strength of one’s team defense (to which an individual may contribute very little) and steal and block totals, which often have little to do with true defensive ability and more to do with risk taking.

For Westbrook in 2016-17, those made for the perfect storm, as he had two all-defense recipients alongside him in Roberson and Oladipo, and another elite defensive force in Steven Adams protecting the rim, all of whom spurred the Thunder to the tenth rated defense in basketball. Additionally, Westbrook’s tendency to float around and gamble on defense, which typically created more problems than opportunities for the Thunder, allowed him to average 1.6 steals per game, further inflating his defensive metrics.

To eliminate flawed calculations, we’ll keep the evaluation of Westbrook’s defense simple, and stick to the eye test and how people truly performed with Westbrook guarding them.

With Westbrook as their primary defender, players shot 48.6% from the field and 39.1% from three, both well above their collective average marks of 45.5% and 35.8%. Of 80 guards to allow at least 500 field goal attempts, Westbrook allowed the 8th highest field goal percentage and 8th worst differential between an opponent’s typical field goal percentage and their mark with him guarding them. These numbers are far worse than those of Isaiah Thomas and James Harden, who are also very flawed defensively but were far more ridiculed for it than Westbrook.

Yet what’s most damning about these stats for Westbrook is that they don’t even account for his greatest weakness – his complete incompetence as an off ball defender. Defense, of course, is primarily about effort, which is why the league’s true worst defenders are almost always worse in off-ball situations than on-ball, when their mistakes are more visible and embarrassing.

Westbrook’s signature plays on defense this season consisted of him failing to get back in transition after his many misses and turnovers, recklessly jumping passing lanes and therefore creating easy scores for the offense, and simply falling asleep and allowing his man to cut to the bucket without his even noticing. If there was a bad play to be made on defense, Westbrook could do it.

The MVP award will never be more about defense than offense, or even 50-50; nor should it be, because that’s simply not how players are evaluated. Rudy Gobert, the back to back defensive player of the year, does not impact the game in the same way and is not seen as an equal of James Harden, who is currently en route to his third straight scoring title.

But defense cannot be disregarded, and Westbrook’s neglect for half of the game is notable.

Triple Doubles Don’t Matter

This may be the most crucial pillar of all, because nothing so meaningless has ever impacted the outcome of an MVP race as much as Westbrook’s 42 triple doubles, and, of course, his triple double average on the season.

First off, the Thunder clearly deliberately orchestrated Westbrook’s high rebounding totals. Some will assert that their motivation was stat padding, while others contend it was the best option for them to initiate their offense quickly, as they could cut out the middle man in getting the ball to their point guard. I believe the truth falls somewhere in the middle – but regardless, Westbrook specialized in stealing rebounds from teammates and swooping in for uncontested boards while Steven Adams executed textbook box outs without a reward on the stat sheet.

Here is some video evidence of that:

This is no critique of Westbrook’s character, but it objectively makes the triple double feats far less impressive.

The numbers show how few legitimate rebounds he earned, as he ranked 55th among qualified players in offensive rebounding and 58th in contested defensive rebounds, a few spots behind James Harden. While every other player to snag at least eight defensive boards a game had a contested defensive rebound rate of at least 30.2%, Westbrook’s rate sat at just 16.1%, which falls outside the top 200 among qualified players.

But even if the triple double were entirely legitimate, it is still so dramatically overvalued. Countless NBA pundits and fans rested their cases on the simple fact that Westbrook “averaged a triple double”, and slept soundly knowing that was solid logic for a MVP case (ignoring that the only other man to ever do it finished third in MVP).

Let’s engage in a thought exercise. In 2016-17, Harden and Westbrook had very similar raw numbers, and between their own scoring and points created off assists, contributed to 57.3 and 56.6 points per game, respectively, a nearly negligible figure that actually favors Harden. So, calling raw numbers a draw, winning and efficiency both go comfortably to Harden.

Which leaves the crux of the pro-Westbrook argument to a difference of 2.6 rebounds per game.

If Westbrook had averaged 9.9 rebounds per game and Harden averaged 7.3, not a soul on earth would argue his case.

That difference means as close to nothing as is possible in regards to a candidacy – and yet, it obliterated every other factor in the minds of many.

The fact he averaged a triple double is not an argument. Next pillar.

Narrative Is Not an Argument

Finally, to address the most reliable poison in MVP history that helped guide Westbrook to victory – narrative. Nearly all of the most questionable MVP selections in NBA history can be tied back to this: Malone in 96-97, Nash in 04-05, Rose in 2010-11; it’s a staple in polluting the minds of voters, as a good story grabs the dreaming journalists who vote on the award by the heart and never lets go.

Well, guess what – a good story is not an argument, and with retrospection, people almost always realize that to be the case.

Westbrook rode a couple of narratives to this MVP award. The first, of course, was the great importance of the triple double, which we just debunked.

The other pivotal storyline was that Westbrook was the victim of a bad breakup with Kevin Durant, as he became the loyal hero who had stayed and was now bringing his city a glorious sixth seed and first round exit.

When Durant left, Westbrook didn’t even receive a heads up text from a man he had considered a brother. That’s terrible. KD may have some things he needs to work out. But that doesn’t matter for an award that is intended to recognize greatness on the basketball court.

Photo by Mark D. Smith, USA TODAY Sports

As a result of the betrayal, Westbrook was appointed as the underdog hero of the season, a story mankind has loved since David and Goliath. When addressing this aspect of the narrative, it is important to remember again that the Thunder performed very similarly to preseason expectations, while the Rockets truly stood out as overachievers; but there was no cute narrative in Houston.

Stories certainly help defy logic, and with Westbrook, the world caught a whiff of his and was along for the ride.

If you disagree with any of this, here is my task to you – make a case to yourself for Westbrook as MVP without saying the words “triple double” or mentioning Durant.

Then, take a long, hard look in the mirror, and think about it if you want to say that out loud.

Comparing Westbrook’s Case to the Competition

That concludes the written portion of the exam – now, here are some quick video arguments for why Westbrook was the least deserving MVP candidate of the four to receive first place votes in 2016-17.

A Look at the Rest of the Worst in MVP History

Finally, here’s a podcast analyzing a few other highly controversial MVPs in NBA history, and discussing why Westbrook’s still comes out as the worst.

Conclusion

I hope this argument is not interpreted as being overwhelmingly negative. I love basketball, and I love debating basketball, and sometimes that means arguing against someone. Still, Russell Westbrook was in the midst of, in my opinion, the best stretch of basketball he has ever played before the NBA shut down, and we can only hope it returns soon so we can look to the present instead of the past.

Footnotes:

1 Win totals from the two lockout shortened seasons were extrapolated to an 82 game sample

2 Usage Rate essentially calculates how many possessions are ended by a single player – its formula is: ((FGA + 0.44 * FTA + TOV) * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Tm FGA + 0.44 * Tm FTA + Tm TOV)) (formula via Basketball Reference)

3 Effective FG% (EFG%) adjusts for the fact that three pointers are more valuable than two pointers; its formula is: (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA (formula via Basketball Reference)

4 True Shooting% (TS%) takes EFG% further by also accounting for free throws, encapsulating one’s completely efficiency as a scorer; its formula is: PTS / ((.44 * FTA + FGA) * 2) (formula via Basketball Reference)

5 This excludes two other seasons that Westbrook met the criteria, because it doesn’t make much sense to compare him to himself in this context.