James Harden averaged 36 points a game last season, but that wasn’t good enough for him to win this year’s NBA Most Value Player. That award went to Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, who also had a monstrous season. However, James doesn’t think Giannis had a better year than him statistically, but believes politics played a role in his winning the MVP award.
Harden spoke with 97.9 The Box recently, and said he believes the media created a narrative for Giannis early in the season that made it nearly impossible for him to overcome.
"I think once the media, they create a narrative about somebody from the beginning of the year, I think they just take that narrative and run with it the entire year," Harden says at the six-minute mark of the interview. "I don’t want to get into details. But all I can do is control what I can do, and I went out there and did what I was supposed to do at a high level. You know what I’m saying?"
As for his impressive performance throughout the last NBA season, Harden added, "The season, there's probably only a few seasons where anybody's ever done that before." He continued, "People were tuned in onto how many points that I was going to score the next game." For 30 games in a row, Harden scored 30 or more points, but it still wasn’t enough for him to win MVP.
Check out the interview (below) and let us know your thoughts. Is Harden right? Did the media premature award Giannis the MVP before season ended?