Oklahoma City Thunder: Paul George should win NBA MVP and DPOY
The Oklahoma City Thunder are having a magnificent season, which is being fueled by Paul George who should win the NBA’s MVP and DPOY awards
On August 1 of 2014, Paul George went down with one of the more gruesome injuries you can endure – an open fracture of the tibia and fibula bones in his lower right leg in Team USA’s first scrimmage.
Just a few months before, George was going bucket-to-bucket with LeBron James in the Eastern Conference Finals. George had already put the league on notice with his performance against the Miami Heat the year before, showing the world he was a superstar in the making.
The years after his devastating injury have been fairly good as George has been a consistent 20-plus point per game scorer, but George had failed to reach the MVP level that everyone expected him to be at following his emergence in Indiana.
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Last year, after requesting a trade from Indiana and being traded to Oklahoma City to play alongside former league MVP Russell Westbrook, George’s numbers took a slight dip as a result from playing with Russell Westbrook who is known to be very ball dominant. In the 2018 playoffs, Paul George had stretches where he looked uncomfortable within Oklahoma City’s offense leading to a five-point performance in the closeout game against the Utah Jazz resulting in a disappointing first-round exit in the playoffs with free agency looming.
This year, things have changed tremendously; this past summer Paul George elected to commit to OKC long term and sign a four-year deal. Since this decision, Paul George has been playing the best basketball of his career with the Oklahoma City Thunder sitting at the 3rd seed in the Western Conference with a 37-19 record, while clearly displaying that he is not only the best player on the Thunder’s roster, but also he is among the league’s elite superstars.
This season’s MVP race has been one of the best in some time, with the reigning MVP James Harden on a historic run of 30 straight 30-point games and Milwaukee’s rising star Giannis Antetokounmpo averaging 27 points per game alongside 12 rebounds and six assists with the Milwaukee Bucks sitting atop of the Eastern Conference with the No. 1 seed.
What separates Paul George from the other two candidates is the fact that Paul George is the undisputed best two-way player in the league, with that being said lets take a look at his impact on both sides of the ball and why if all phases of the game truly matters, he deserves strong consideration for the MVP and/or DPOY award.
Offense
It is impossible to begin talking about Paul George’s impact on offense without acknowledging the huge change in Russell Westbrook’s game. Westbrook has evolved into a true point guard allowing Paul George to have the freedom within the offense to be a clear No. 1 option.
Westbrook sacrificing his scoring, from averaging 25 points per game last year to 21 points per game this year, has allowed Paul George’s points per game numbers to increase by seven whole points, from 21 points per game to 28 points per game. The massive jump in George’s scoring is a testament to the fact that George has no holes in his offensive arsenal.
George has great size (at 6-foot-8) and his athleticism to match that makes him a headache to defend due to the handles and jump-shot he possesses, with the ability to hit shots from anywhere on the floor and in every which way, from spot up jump-shots to shots off the dribble and midrange/post-jump-shots.
Currently this year, PG is averaging a career-high 28 points per game, career-high eight rebounds a game and is tied for his career high in assists, in addition to shooting his second highest field goal percentage at 45 percent and his highest 3 point percentage at 41 percent. This season alone, George has 25 games of 30+ points with six games of 40+ including a season-defining game against the Brooklyn Nets where he scored 20 of his 47 points in the 4th quarter to catapult a 23 point comeback in the Barclays Center.
Paul George has become an offensive force and him playing to his offensive potential has made Oklahoma City a true threat on the offensive side of the ball. Paul George’s resurgence on the offensive side of the ball is instrumental to the success that the Thunder have had this season.
A seven-point per game jump is significant under any circumstance, so for him to be performing like this alongside a ball dominant point guard, who is also a former MVP, and to be succeeding at this rat , is more than worthy for very strong consideration to be the league MVP.
Defense
The Oklahoma City Thunder are currently the 3rd ranked defense in the NBA, led by Paul George. Since entering the league, George has been known for his defense and is one of the most efficient two-way players on the planet. George is one of the very few stars in the league today that cares about shutting down his opposition just as much as scoring on the opposition.
Numbers aside, just the eye-test of watching Paul George defend, it’s easy to see that there are not many players in the NBA that can defend at the level that he can. Paul also has the numbers to prove it as he is currently leading the NBA in steals per game, averaging a career high of eight rebounds per game and is also the 5th highest rated defender in the league.
James Harden the most efficient and lethal scorer in the league at the moment got a sample of what it is like when being guarded by George, In this game Harden scored 42 points, but when guarded by George he scored seven points, shot 2-9 from the field, 1-7 from 3 and turned the ball over three times when the Rockets and Thunder met recently.
These are the types of defensive performances we have been accustomed to seeing from PG13, Last year, a large portion of NBA fans felt as though George had been snubbed from the Defensive Player Of The Year award, we should not allow history to repeat itself.
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This year’s race for NBA MVP is tight and competitive, given the seasons the top 3 candidates (Harden, Antetokounmpo and George) are having there is no wrong answer, nevertheless the combination of Georges efforts on the defensive end and offensive end should be good enough to achieve strong consideration for the MVP award and enough to win the DPOY award.
We still have a ways to go for the 2018-19 NBA season, we do not know how the rest of this season will go but at this rate, Paul George has a chance to become the first player to win MVP and DPOY in the same season since Michael Jordan, or one or the other.