NBA: The 5 best candidates to never win an individual league award

LeBron James and Luka Doncic (Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
LeBron James and Luka Doncic (Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
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NBA
NBA Houston Rockets Dwight Howard (Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)

MVP: Dwight Howard

Calm down, Joel Embiid. Your non-MVP-winning seasons were absolutely dominant. No one is saying Dwight Howard’s peak was better than yours.

Yes, you couldn’t run a great offense through prime Dwight Howard, but his offensive game was still very effective (arguably allowing Stan Van Gundy to create the four-out-modern offense) and his defense was good enough to deserve three consecutive awards in that category.

While probably the most annoying player still of all-time (that’s not on this list, sadly), Dwight was arguably better than Derrick Rose in 2010-2011, and solidly a top-five player from 2007-2012.

The next best players still active to never win the award are Embiid and Chris Paul.