Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant will be named as the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP), sources close to ESPN said, with the announcement to be made before the Thunder start their series against the LA Clippers.
The Thunder forward has been widely anticipated to have wrapped up the MVP plum after a stellar showing in the regular season. The league, however, decided to take a pause in handing out regular season awards to tackle the Donald Sterling controversy.
Other expected awardees next week will be Jamal Crawford of the LA Clippers as the league's top sixth man and Michael Carter-Williams as the rookie of the year.
On Saturday, the Thunder set up a second round match-up with the Clippers after beating the Memphis Grizzlies, 120-109. Durant poured 33 points in the win.
More importantly for Durant, the win avoided what could have been an embarrassing scenario of accepting the league's highest individual honor after being bounced out of the playoffs. It can be remembered that in 2007, Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks was forced to accept his MVP trophy a few days after his Mavericks were eliminated by the eight-seeded Golden State Warriors. Nowitzki had led the Mavericks to a franchise-best 67-15 win-loss record that season but was ambushed by the upstart Warriors.
Durant was the league's top scorer during the regular season with 32 points a game. He is set to become the first scoring leader and MVP winner in the same season since the Philadelphia 76ers' Allen Iverson did it in 2001.
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