Houston Rockets star James Harden was named Saturday as one of the NBA’s three finalists for its 2019-20 MVP award.
This is the fourth consecutive year that Harden has been an MVP finalist, which the NBA began doing with the 2016-17 season — when it launched a formal NBA Awards program. The awards are determined by a global media panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.
All votes have already been cast based on games played prior to the NBA’s recent restart at Disney World, as a means of being fair to the eight teams who were not invited to participate. Winners will be announced during the 2020 NBA playoffs, which are set to begin on August 17.
Your 2019-20 #KiaMVP finalists are:
🔶 Giannis Antetokounmpo
🔶 LeBron James
🔶 James Harden#NBAAwards pic.twitter.com/zQGPuQQCio— NBA TV (@NBATV) August 8, 2020
Various media forecasts have shown Harden finishing third, trailing Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers. Now 30 years old, Harden has placed second in MVP voting on three occasions (2014-15, 2016-17, 2018-19) with the Rockets, and he won the award for the 2017-18 season.
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Harden is leading the Rockets and the NBA in scoring this year at a 34.3 points per game clip, which is just the third time in over 30 years that a player has averaged at least 34 points in a season. (The other two were Harden’s 36.1 last season and Kobe Bryant’s 35.4 in 2005-06.)
Assuming “The Beard” keeps his scoring average above 34 after the four remaining regular-season games, Harden will become just the third player in league history to average at least 34 points in two different seasons, joining Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. Over his eight years to date in Houston, Harden has earned All-Star honors in all of them while leading his Rockets to the playoffs during each season.
In addition to his historic scoring numbers, Harden ranks eighth in the NBA in assists at 7.5 per game this season. He’s also No. 5 in steals (1.8).
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