The 2014-15 NBA regular season is nearing its end, but the debate about who should earn the MVP award is just beginning. There is an even more difficult discussion that must be had though-which of the top four MVP candidates that play one of the guard positions should be named All-NBA First Team.
Below, Sports World News will break down each player's case, and ultimately decide which two players get the First Team nod.
Stephen Curry, PG Golden State Warriors
Curry has averaged 23.6 points and 7.7 assists for a Warriors team that has been the best in the NBA from start to finish. He's connected on 43 percent of his 3-pointers this year on more than eight attempts per game, and is one half of the greatest shooting backcourt in NBA history, statistically.
He is the engine of the NBA's best offense, has posted a 27.6 PER (3rd in the NBA) and was actually worth four wins on the strength of his defense alone, a stat that may shock casual basketball fans with a predetermined notion about his ability to guard the position. Curry is averaging a career-high two steals a night, and the Warriors have the highest defensive rating in the league.
So to sum it up, Curry is the best player on the best team, which is first in both offensive and defensive rating. He also is the best shooter in the league, ranking fourth in 3-point percentage while taking far and away the most attempts. And he plays active, valuable defense, as opposed to being hidden.
Russell Westbrook, PG Oklahoma City Thunder
While Oklahoma City has been riddled with injuries, including to Westbrook in the early part of the season, his play has single-handedly kept them in the Western Conference playoff race. While Curry plays "beautiful" basketball, dropping highlight-reel dimes and swishing 3-pointers, Westbrook attacks with reckless abandon on almost every possession.
Westbrook is second in the NBA in field goal attempts, yet he's still converting 41 percent of those into baskets. He's chided as not being a "true" point guard, but he averages 8.8 assists along with his 27.5 points per game, and he's become a triple-double machine in Kevin Durant's absence, notching a league-high 11 triple-doubles. Three players are tied for second with three. To put that into perspective, Westbrook was especially vicious over a four-game stretch in which he posted four triple-doubles and averaged 37 points, 13 rebounds, and 10.5 assists.
Westbrook does have a tendency to launch too many 3-pointers-he shoots 4.1 a game at a paltry 29.1 percent rate-and he has become a risk-taker on defense, often to the detriment of an OKC club that's cratered on that end without Serge Ibaka protecting the hoop.
His 28.6 PER is second in the NBA despite those flaws though, and the caliber of players that have gone down around him do wonders for his MVP candidacy.
James Harden, SG Houston Rockets
Harden, Westbrook's former running mate in Oklahoma City, has the edge on him in the race for the scoring title and is the most important player on the No. 2 seed in the West, the Houston Rockets. Harden's averaging 27.7 points a night, and he's doing it in much more efficient fashion than Westbrook is.
Harden has become a sabermetric ideal; he leads the NBA in free throw attempts (777) and is fourth in 3-point attempts (545). Harden has shot 86.5 percent from the line and 38 percent from deep. He uses 31.4 percent of the Rockets' possessions and assisted on 34.5 percent of his teammates' buckets. With Harden leading the way the Rockets are fifth in the NBA in points per game despite getting just 37 starts from Dwight Howard.
But what about his YouTube-famous defensive drawbacks? Well, they're disappearing. Harden dedicated himself to being in shape during the offseason and has posted the best defensive rating per 100 possessions of his career. Like Curry, he has been worth four wins defensively, but because defensive reputations are so hard to shake, he hasn't gotten the props for it just yet.
Chris Paul, PG Los Angeles Clippers
Paul sounds like a boring pick because of his consistent excellence and reputation for picking and choosing when to dominate, but this year he's been exceptional. Paul is putting up a nightly double-double (19.7 points, 10.2 assists) and helped keep the Clippers rolling without missing a beat while Blake Griffin missed 15 games. L.A. was 9-6 in that stretch, with seven of those victories coming by double-digits.
In that same span Paul averaged 20.7 points and 11.6 assists, while helping DeAndre Jordan make a case for himself as a max-contract player this offseason despite an absence of a post-up game and an inability to hit free throws.
Paul's been better from long range than Harden has, leads the entire league in offensive win shares (12.4), and is second in the league in steals.
So who is All-NBA First Team?
One selection must be Stephen Curry, whose talents allow the Warriors to be one of the most dominant regular season teams the NBA has ever seen. His incredible shooting stroke, and ability to unload 3-point attempts that he creates himself from any spot and any distance, have made him virtually unguardable. That alone wouldn't be enough this year to earn the nod, but he's improved so much on defense as well, that he's impossible to leave off. He's also the front-runner for the MVP award.
The second spot belongs to Russell Westbrook, whose rampage is almost unprecedented. While Harden's modern attack has saved the Rockets' season while Howard battles injuries, and Chris Paul's efficiency has managed to withstand injuries to Blake Griffin as well as an oddly constructed roster, Westbrook has overcome the loss of the reigning MVP and an injury to one of the top shot-blockers in the league to keep OKC's playoff hopes alive. 11 triple-doubles can't be left off the team.
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