Will Chris Paul or James Harden keep the MVP award away from LeBron James?: NBA 2016/17 preview

Agency photos; The National illustration

The National’s resident basketball fans Jonathan Raymond and Kevin Jeffers count down the days until the NBA’s October 26 tip-off by discussing the league’s hottest talking points.

Today, they look at the potential MVP candidates.

• Jeffers: So, we've gone over all the (two) teams with championship prospects. Let's talk individual glory!

Stephen Curry was one of the most deserving MVPs ever last season and the year before, but the consensus will probably be that as good of an encore as he’s bound to have, his pairing with Kevin Durant will offset any of that potential do-it-all MVP-ness that voters love so much. Same goes for Durant.

So if two of the best three players in the world are — for the sake of this discussion — ineligible, does that make the MVP award LeBron’s to lose? Or is there anyone else who could sneak in and grab it?

• Raymond: I know it's not supposed to work this way, but it would seem plausible at least that a movement arises to give LeBron the award based on winning the title last season, so long as he clears a minimal threshold of excellence this year.

If you agree that’s potentially in play, I think all LeBron might have to do is play in 65-70 games and lead Cleveland to the top seed in the East (shouldn’t be too hard) and the award would reasonably be his. Five would also put him on par with Bill Russell and Michael Jordan (one behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record six), and there would be some symbolic value to voters in lifting him there I reckon.

Now, that’s excluding the possibility a bonkers, too-good-to-ignore season. A possibility, however, as you note greatly diminished by Durant and Curry — the only other guys to win an MVP since 2008 — sharing the floor now in Golden State.

However, it’s not impossible.

• See more: Who can stop the Cavs or Warriors?

For fun, who do you think could pull such a thing off? James Harden at point guard offers an interesting possibility in Houston, but I dunno if we’ll ever see him better than he was in 2014/15. What if Karl-Anthony Towns goes just crazy and Minnesota win 50 games?

• Jeffers: If Harden didn't win it two years ago, I can't see a better scenario to give it to him. And Towns can't be that good just yet. My mental capacities can't handle that.

One guy I think due for a complete reconsideration is Chris Paul. Say he just goes out and does his usual thing — 20 points, 10 assists, first-team defence — but Deandre Jordan or Blake Griffin get hurt, and the Clippers still win 60 games (doable) and grab the 2 seed? James would have to slightly disappoint in this scenario, and the Spurs would have to decline a bit to keep it away from Kawhi Leonard. But In a year when no voter is going to reward a Warrior, why not finally give Paul — inarguably one of the greatest point guards ever — his due?

CP3 is 31, a free agent after the year, and probably the greatest player in Clippers history. He’s going to have a monster year if he stays healthy, and could be in line for a Derrick Rose-type MVP season, winning it when there’s no Curry-esque level of history made.

One other wild card everyone seems to have forgotten about: Anthony Davis. What would it take for the former ‘It’ guy to remind us what kind of world-destroyer he’s meant to be?

• Raymond: I like that Chris Paul scenario. I think you've hit on something, which is that it could be a more open MVP race than we've had for some time, and it might lead to a sentimental favourite kind of scenario. If there's no real slam-dunk MVP candidate — and though it feels difficult to identify one right now, there's every possibility one will be staring us in the face come, like, December — you can't find a better candidate than Paul for a lifetime achievement sort of nod.

Davis will “bounce back” — he was still pretty dang good last year, but obviously it was a down year. It’s weird to peg what was going on with Davis and New Orleans last season. He missed a few more games than usual, yeah, but he’s missed at least 14 every season he’s been in the league.

Something always just looked a little off. It’s one thing to say a guy will return to health and be 100 per cent himself again. It’s another to identify kinks and solutions to those kinks. He took more threes and was generally below average shooting them (32.4 per cent). Do you tell him to keep developing that skill or to cut it out? The rest of the team around him still leaves a lot to be desired.

I dunno. I think he might be half a season or a season still from figuring out where he wants to take his game. That can be the problem with limitless potential sometimes. He is, unbelievably, still only 23.

Here are some other wild card MVP scenarios to chew on: Russell Westbrook tears the universe apart and the Thunder remain a top 4-5 team in the West; Paul George reaches another level and brings the Pacers to the 2-seed in the East, DeMarcus Cousins rounds out the rough edges in his game, goes nuts and transforms the Kings into a play-off team.

(Hah, just kidding on that last one)

• Jeffers: I hadn't thought of George, who at times is a top-5 player. If Indiana returns to the top of the East, he's in play. And Westbrook is going to burn everything to the ground, which is going to be insanely fun to watch.

LeBron is the safest bet to win. And if Curry hits even 80 per cent of his production last year, that’s an MVP-calibre year. But again, he or Durant could only win it if they have to carry the team because of an injury to the other.

Given all that, I’d predict the rankings thus:

1 LeBron

2 Chris Paul

3 Westbrook

4 The field

5 Kobe

Give me your top 5.

• Raymond: 1 LeBron

1A/1B Currant/Durry

2 George (This scenario is growing more and more on me by the minute)

3 Paul

4 Leonard

5 Harden

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