James Harden was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player on Monday, capping off an entertaining night at the second annual NBA Awards Show.
Harden averaged a league-leading 30.4 points per game for the Houston Rockets, while also averaging 8.8 assists and 5.4 rebounds on the season.
Harden Takes Top Honors
For Harden, the recognition also offered a bit of redemption. He believed he was going to win the MVP award last year, and was surprised when Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder received the honor instead.
Harden said that he didn’t even prepare a speech this time around, just in case he faced a similar disappointment this year.
“The last four years have been like knocking on the door,” Harden said when he received the MVP trophy. “Now the moment is finally here. Just every single year, you try to come back and be better than you were the year before, and just to be holding that trophy finally, it means a lot.”
Harden won the award over finalists LeBron James and Anthony Davis. James was hoping to win his fifth career MVP award.
Russell Shows Barkley Who’s No. 1
The NBA Awards Show is an unusual spectacle, held weeks after the NBA Finals and months after the end of the regular season, when the voting for the awards actually takes place. That can lead to some unusual results: for instance, Dwane Casey winning NBA Coach of the Year more than a month after the Toronto Raptors fired him following the team’s underwhelming playoff performance.
But that doesn’t mean that the show can’t be entertaining. There were plenty of outlandish suits on display, and with the NBA on TNT crew sitting off to the side of the stage, they added an energy to the show by essentially sharing the presentation duties with host Anthony Anderson.
The personalities on display helped inject some laughs into the proceedings. While introducing Oscar Robertson, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award, Charles Barkley took note of the many NBA legends in attendance, pointing them out individually. When Barkley got to Bill Russell, he responded by showing Barkley his middle finger, earning a laugh from the crowd.
Russell later tweeted an apology, saying that “I can’t help myself whenever I see Charles it just is pure instinct.” Barkley didn’t seem offended by the gesture.
“I love that guy like a father,” Barkley said in a text to USA Today Sports. “It was awesome.”
Rookie Mistake?
Of course, there were more than a few awards to be handed out as well. One of the most interesting races came in the Rookie of the Year contest, which had been the source of some debate – largely between the two leading candidates, Ben Simmons of the 76ers and Donovan Mitchell of the Jazz.
Mitchell shared the opinion that Simmons wasn’t really a rookie, since he had spent a season with Philadelphia rehabbing an injury before finally playing this year. But voters disagreed, giving Simmons the honor.
“For me, I am obviously happy that I won the award,” Simmons said in his acceptance speech. “That doesn’t take anything away from Jayson [Tatam] or Donovan from having an excellent season.”
Other winners included Victor Oladipo, who was named Most Improved Player, Rudy Gobert, who won Defensive Player of the Year, and Lou Williams, who earned the Sixth Man of the Year award.