Milwaukee Bucks: Is Giannis Antetokounmpo the MVP So Far?

The Other MVP Candidates

It’s safe to say that through approximately half of the NBA regular season, Giannis is at least in the upper echelon of MVP candidates, but who’s alongside him?

Perhaps his greatest challenger is the reigning MVP winner and recent opponent, James Harden. After a rocky and tumultuous start, Harden has been scorching hot as of late, scoring at least 30 points in 14 straight games and 40 points in eight of them.

With Chris Paul and Eric Gordon out, Harden has taken on the burden of scoring and has been truly unstoppable. His stats are so insane that if you wanted to put him as the leader in the clubhouse for the MVP, I wouldn’t be offended.

But with Harden being the reigning MVP, he’s at a disadvantage in my opinion. Repeat winners have become increasingly rare, as it seems that winners have to almost do better than the year before to sway voters in favor of a repeat.

And, despite Harden’s gaudy stats, the Rockets as a team have regressed. Will MVP voters reward an MVP whose team has gotten worse? I have a hard time seeing it.

Probably next on the list is Kawhi. Leading the red-hot Raptors to the top of the NBA standings, Kawhi has been his usual self. That is to say, dominant on both ends.

However, if you ask me, Kawhi isn’t a serious contender as long as he continues to rest on back-to-backs. Yes, he’s still incredible when he’s out there, but in comparison to players like Giannis and Harden, who are out there every night carrying their teams?

I don’t think so. Play back-to-backs like everyone else and then you can enter the conversation.

Then there’s LeBron who is doing LeBron things, even though he’s 34 and on a not very good Lakers team. If the Lakers as a team go on a run that puts them near the top of the West standings, it’s going to be hard not to reward the King with the MVP.

But with his recent injury, that seems unlikely and I’m not sure the Lakers even want to push LeBron that hard before the playoffs. Plus, there is voter fatigue when it comes to LeBron to consider.

The same goes for Kevin Durant and Steph Curry. At the beginning of the year, Curry looked primed to light the entire league on fire on his way to another MVP season, but he’s cooled off a little bit and the Warriors have stumbled as of late.

Both players are mostly coasting through the regular season, waiting for the playoffs, which makes me doubt they’re going to make a strong enough push to warrant serious MVP consideration.

While there are certainly some tough challengers so far, with half of the season in the bag, Giannis looks to be the frontrunner in the MVP race.

There’s still a lot of season to go and a lot can happen, but if I had to choose a favorite as of this moment it would be the Greek Freak.