The race for the MVP of the NBA’s regular season comes down to two of the league’s most dominating players: Giannis Antetokounmpo and James Harden. Both the Greek Freak and the Beard had fantastic individual seasons, but whom will ultimately receive the 2019 NBA MVP trophy will come down to how voters interpret most valuable.

Whether Harden’s offensive brilliance makes him more impactful than Antetokounmpo’s all-round game is essentially what voters will decide upon. So will the voters value the team success the Milwaukee Bucks had or were they sufficiently wowed by Harden’s historic individual performances to cast their vote for the Rocket’s shooting guard. Let’s take a look.

The MVP Case for James Harden

When we talk of Harden in 2018-19, we talk about how unstoppable he was. He scored 30 points or more in 32 consecutive games and hit 50 points on nine occasions. The Beard easily led the NBA in scoring with 36.1 points per game (and also ranked seventh in assists) — the highest scoring average in over 40 years. That’s since Michael Jordan averaged 37.1 points per game in 1986-87.

James Harden’s statistical excellence cannot be glazed over. It was historic. Harden’s cold hard numbers pulled the under performing Houston Rockets out of 14th place in the West to the 53 wins and the fourth seed when the NBA Playoffs began. His scoring outbursts and history-making numbers are certainly a factor, but scoring has never been the most-important MVP signal.

That said, four of the last five MVPs led the NBA in scoring, each of those players averaged 30 points per game or more — that’s according to the following infographic provided by Betway.

Harden is definitely one of the most, if not the most, important players for their teams. If we’re talking pure most valuable, we can understand why voters would go with Harden.

The MVP Case for Giannis Antetokounmpo 

The Milwaukee Bucks finished the regular season with the best record in the NBA. At 60-22, the Bucks were led by Antetokounmpo’s breakout season that was full of long strides and dunking on unsuspecting defenders.

When we talk about the two, it’s not hard to talk about Harden’s singular performances and records, but that’s not doing justice to Giannis’ accomplishments this season. In 72 games, Giannis put up 27.7 points per game, 12.5 rebounds, and 5.9 assists while shooting 57.8% from the field and 72% from the line. And the 6’11 power forward was named to his third consecutive NBA All-Star game. Here’s what NBA.com’s Sekou Smith wrote supporting Antetokounmpo as the league’s MVP.

Even though he’s far from a traditional, dominant low-post big man, Antetokounmpo controls games in the manner that Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did during MVP-winning seasons during their Hall of Fame careers. (O’Neal said so himself this season.)

Compare Antetokounmpo’s raw numbers this season (27.7 points, 12.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.3 steals per game) to Olajuwon’s during his ‘93-94 MVP season (27.3 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 3.6 apg, 3.7 bpg and 1.6 spg) or O’Neal’s ’99-00 MVP season (29.7 ppg, 13.6 rpg, 3.8 apg, 3 bpg and 0.5 spg) or Abdul-Jabbar’s ‘75-76 MVP season (27.7 ppg, 16.9 rpg, 5 apg, 4.1 bpg and 1.5 spg) for some context on just how historically dominant he has been.

Oh yes, Antetokounmpo also averaged 1.5 blocks and 1.3 steals too, so not only was he brilliant on the offensive end, he also helped Milwaukee become the #1 ranked defense in the league. Giannis also leads the league in PER, which is a score that sums up all a player’s positive accomplishments and subtracts the negative accomplishments.

And the people love his game, this season has been so transformative for Giannis that he now sits behind only LeBron and Steph Curry in jersey sales. If we’re talking the best player on the best team, then it’s Antetokounmpo that’s the league’s true MVP.

What NBA MVP History Tell Us

When we reviewed the history of the MVP award last year, we identified voting patterns as to what matters the most to MVP voters. We found that more often than not, winning matters the most when determining the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. Not 30 point games. Not 50 point games. Not ridiculous scoring averages.

If there is one “MVP” stat that indicated a player’s MVP likelihood, it’s the Player Efficiency Rating (PER) we mentioned above. Over the last ten years, the player that led the league in this advanced metric became MVP eight of the last ten years. In that same time, 7 of the last 10 MVPs played on the team with the best record. It’s for those two indisputable reasons that Antetokounmpo has a major edge over Harden in this year’s race for the MVP.