NBA Award Watch: Russell Westbrook is on fire
By John Buhler
The NBA has had an exciting first two months of the 2016-17 regular season. Here are the front-runners for every major award in this week’s NBA Award Watch.
The NBA is roughly a quarter in the books. It is no longer October, nor is it November. We are now into December NBA basketball! That means Christmas is coming soon and the NBA is about to take the American sports psyche by storm.
It’s still insanely early, but we’ve seen some outstanding basketball in these first several weeks of the 2016-17 NBA season. Here are the front-runners for the six major NBA awards through November in this week’s NBA Award Watch.
Most Valuable Player: Oklahoma City Thunder PG Russell Westbrook
Remember how through the first few weeks Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook was averaging a triple-double. Well, through 20 NBA games this season, Westbrook is back to being a triple-double machine.
Oklahoma City is a middle of the pack Western Conference playoff team, but Westbrook is leading the charge with 31.1 points, 11.2 assists, and 10.2 rebounds per game. Though he isn’t shooting at a high clip from the field (42.6 percent), Westbrook’s PER is through the roof at 30.2.
Westbrook has been everything for this new look Thunder offense. Though he leads the NBA in usage (41.0 percent), he is also leading the NBA in assist percentage (58.1), Box Plus/Minus (14.0), and Value Over Replacement Player (2.8).
Though Oklahoma City is not projected to be a 50-win team this season, having a superstar point guard averaging a triple-double has to make Westbrook the front-runner for NBA MVP. This hasn’t happened since Oscar Robertson did it over 50 years ago for the then Cincinnati Royals.