The MVP race for the 2016-17 season was one of the most anticipated MVP races of all-time, resulting in Russell Westbrook triple-doubling his way to winning the award with 69 first-place votes.
James Harden placed second with 22 first-place votes. Westbrook won the award largely due to the fact that he was the first player to average a triple-double since Oscar Robertson did it in 1962.
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in a phone interview seemed to question the consistency of the NBA MVP voting process, stating that in previous years the player that was on the team with the better record seemed to have a definite edge in winning the award.
“I don’t know if this is a good process,” Morey told The Crossover. “The ones that are decided by players or executives or media, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I honestly don’t think there’s a good process. You could argue for eliminating the awards altogether. I don’t really see a good way to do it that doesn’t have major issues. I like clean answers. If there’s not going to be a set criteria and there’s going to be issues with how it’s structured, for me it might be better to not have it.
“We thought James was the MVP but there were a bunch of very good, deserving candidates,” Morey continued, before making an apparent reference to Westbrook’s triple-double achievement. “I didn’t like how a different MVP criteria was used this year, compared to the last 55 years, to fit more of a marketing slogan. People thought a different criteria for selecting the MVP this year was the way to go.”
To be fair, you can say that he has a point seeing as the Rockets had a better record and placed in the third seed compared to the Thunder‘s sixth seed. Regardless of his personal feelings though, the dust has settled and Westbrook is the MVP, and it’s going down that way in history.
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