Is Russell Westbrook The Worst MVP Winner Of All Time?
The obvious answer is yes. I don’t feel like I even need to say anything here. If you don’t get by now that Russell Westbrook has always sucked, you need to seek help. However, SEO requires me to make this article 300 words so I will oblige and explain to you why Westbrook is easily the worst MVP winner of all time.
For starters, the year (2016-17) Westbrook won the MVP, OKC was a 6th seed. That should never happen. Your team needs to be a legitimate title contender or you’re not the MVP. It’s really as simple as that. This is the NBA. Stars dominate the sport. This isn’t like MLB when Shohei Ohtani can carry a team and it’s still not good enough to make the playoffs. Stars are what make the NBA go and if you’re not bright enough of a star to put your team in the title race, you can’t win the award.
The .568 win percentage by the Thunder that year is the third worst mark for a team that’s ever had an MVP winner on it. The other two MVP winners on worse teams were Bob Pettit and Kareem Abdul Jabaar. Pettit played in the 50’s for the St. Louis Hawks when the local Janitor would have made the team so let’s throw that out. Kareem was the all-time leading scorer in NBA history until LeBron broke his record.
That alone should tell you most of what you need to know. It’s inexcusable. The truth of the matter is, the voters threw a pitty party for Westbrick and encouraged him to act like a prick. Then you wondered why he developed poor habits and became a detriment towards winning.
Last time I checked you win the game by scoring more points than the opponent. You do that by being more efficient than the other team. Westbrook also sports the third worst FG% by an MVP winner ever. The worst mark is by Bob Cousy in 1956-57 (37.8%). Also a totally different era. The average FG% league wide the year Cousy won was 38%. The average FG% last year was 47.5%. It was just a totally different sport.
The only MVP winner that’s on par with Westbrook in terms of being that bad of a piss poor shooter is Allen Iverson in 2000-01. Iverson shot 42% but also took a mediocre team to the Finals. That 76ers team also won 56 games and was the one seed in the East when Iverson was the lead dog. A bit of a different story to excuse Iverson on bad shot selection when he’s carrying the team to the Finals and the one seed. Westbrook was bounced in the first round and never was a legitimate contender.
The modern NBA is a 3-point shooting league. Westbrook was quite literally the worst 3-point shooter in the league the season after. Nobody was worse. He’s always shot the ball like a toddler. You can’t give the MVP Award to a guard that can’t shoot. Not in the modern NBA. It’s inexcusable.
Also, it’s pretty outrageous that a guy who turned the ball over 438 times won the MVP Award. That’s a real number. He really turned the ball over 438 times that year and was recognized as the most valuable player in the league. Especially for a point guard that’s tasked with taking care of the ball. That’s the most turnovers by an MVP winner by a WIDE margin.
Would you give the MVP to a running back who had the most fumbles in a season? How about the MVP to a guy who struck out the most times? What about giving the MVP to a forward who turned the puck over the most? Do we see how insane that is?
LeBron probably should have won the MVP Award and the only explanation why he didn’t win that year is voter fatigue. That’s coming from someone who hates LeBron. Instead, the voters went with a selfish prick that was rewarded for playing bad basketball. So what we gave the award because the guy took bad shots and juiced his rebounding numbers? Absolutely pathetic the pity party the NBA threw for this guy all because Kevin Durant correctly left him.
It’s a black stain by the NBA and should be viewed as forever unforgivable.
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