The Houston Rockets got another win on Wednesday night and the news and rumors have been coming out.
Check out the latest buzz below.
Harden Could be MVP
James Harden’s early efforts have placed him near the top of the MVP race.
Harden is averaging 25.1 points, 7.5 assists, and 6.4 rebounds in 36.9 minutes. He’s shooting .387 and .309 from 3-point range, but is also averaging 10.1 free throws a game and shooting .914 from the line.
Number Fire is keeping track of the top candidates with a custom metric called nERD, or a player ranking that measures the total contribution of a player throughout the course of a season, based on their efficiency.
“The league average is 0. Comparable to win shares, this ranking gives an estimate of how many games above or below .500 a league-average team would win with that player as one of their starters,” it said.
Harden is currently fifth, behind Kyle Lowry, Chris Bosh, Stephen Curry, and Anthony Davis.
“If you wanted to argue that Harden has been the MVP of this young season, you wouldn’t find much of an argument from me. So far, he’s posted the highest nERD of any player with a rating of 24.8, while his Rockets have earned the highest nERD of any team (85.1). So, while Harden may be the best player on the number-one ranked team, there’s a way we can more effectively weigh the value of each potential MVP candidate,” it said.
“By dividing Harden’s nERD by his team’s overall nERD we can find the percentage of total nERD he contributes to his team. Harden’s nERD share, of 29.1% ranks fifth among our top five players. This is in large part due to the presence of Dwight Howard and Trevor Ariza, who also boast nERD ratings of 12.8 and 15.7, respectively. Harden may very well be the best player out of the gate in 2014, but he hasn’t been the most valuable. However, if Howard goes down with injuries as he has in the past, Harden could see a jump in value and MVP votes by the end of the year.”
Bleacher Report confirms that Harden might win the 2015 Most Valuable Player Award, which has three main factors--individual success, team success, and narrative. The first two criteria basically leave Curry and Harden.
“And from there, it comes down to narrative. Curry has the slight edge in both of them and has the last by a sizable gap. Curry is a media favorite. He’s a great kid and incredibly fun to watch. When his shot is dropping, it’s pure high-def entertainment. He’s the all-American boy. Even when Curry does something wrong, the media has a way of making it right. After a 10-turnover game, he posted a picture of an apple turnover on his Instagram and the media ate it up (the response, not the pastry),” it said.
“Harden, on the other hand, is viewed as a ’ref-baiter' who doesn’t play a lick of defense. But that’s where he can actually flip the narrative. What the media loves more than anything else is righting a wrong. It plays so well into the American maxim that hard work pays off. And Harden has been putting work into the defensive end, even if it hasn’t caught up to the average fan yet.”
It concluded that Curry is the favorite but Harden has a real chance.
Howard Discusses His Exit From Orlando
Dwight Howard opened up about leaving the Magic in a new documentary, “Dwight Howard: In The Moment.”
“We shouldn’t be losing like this. I wanted to win. And I went to management and I said: ‘Guys, I’m a player. I just want to give my two cents. I think that our coach has lost his touch with the team. Great coach, but I think he’s lost his touch, I think he’s lost his voice. And I think it’s time that you guys get a new voice,’” Howard recalled regarding asking management to make a coaching change after the Magic lost in the first-round of the playoffs in 2011, reported ESPN.
“I said, ‘I love him as a coach, but I think we need a new voice.’ … Six weeks [later], they finally respond [and say], ‘We’re gonna keep Stan.’ So I’m like: ‘OK. That lets me know how you guys feel about your leader expressing how to make the team better.’”
Howard also talked about the trade demand that soon followed.
“That summer I just thought about what I needed for my career. And when I got back [to Orlando], I let those guys know that I wanted to be traded. … I just wanted a change for myself. I didn’t want it to be done publicly. I just wanted it to happen silently. And I‘d go to a new team, start fresh. Well, it didn’t happen that way. … The season comes around and they asked me to come to the office, shook my hand and they said, ’We’re gonna trade you tomorrow,'” he said.
“The next day the trade didn’t happen, but they came out and said I wanted to be traded. And that’s when everything went downhill. And I feel like I should have came out and said some things at that point to let people know what was going on, but in that situation I really didn’t know what to do.”
Rockets Beat Timberwolves Behind Howard’s 22
MEXICO CITY—Feeling better after missing his first game of the season because of a flu-like virus, Dwight Howard promised to put on a show for his Mexican fans. And he delivered.
Howard, who missed Saturday’s game against the Golden State Warriors, had 22 points and 10 rebounds Wednesday as the Houston Rockets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 113-101 at Arena Ciudad de Mexico in the first regular-season game played south of the border since 1997.
“It’s a big honor to play in Mexico. We had an amazing time even though it was a super short trip. The last time we lost so I wanted to come back with a better effort,” said Howard, who fed off the 18,996 fans. “I’ve always wanted to come to Mexico. The fans were great. They were standing and cheering from warm-ups until the end ... I wish I could play all of our games here in Mexico.”
James Harden led the Rockets with 23 points and a team-high 10 assists, but was only 8 of 23 from the field.
Trevor Ariza added 19 points and Kostas Papanikolau scored a career-high 14 for the Rockets (7-1), who tied Memphis for the best record in the Western Conference.
“We want to be the best at the end of the year,” Howard said. “The West is a tough Conference, but if we play hard, we can beat anybody. We want to hold the trophy at the end of the year. That’s what we talk about every day.”
With Ricky Rubio sidelined indefinitely after spraining his left ankle during Friday’s loss to the Orlando Magic, the Wolves lost their third straight game.
Corey Brewer scored 18 points and rookie Andrew Wiggins added 15 for Minnesota.
The Rockets played without starting point guard Patrick Beverley and couldn’t pull away until the third quarter.
“In the first half it was tough. We couldn’t get any stops,” Harden said. “In the third quarter we locked down and made a run to seal the game then.”
The teams played without incident nearly a year after a game between the San Antonio Spurs and Timberwolves was canceled because a short circuit in a generator room sent smoke and fumes inside the Mexico City Arena during warmups.
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TIP-INS
Timberwolves: After hitting 46.2 percent from the field in their first three games, Minnesota shot under 45 percent (44.4) from the field for the fifth straight night. ... The Wolves turned the ball over 13 times.
Rockets: After going 0 for 6 from beyond the arc in the loss against the Warriors, Ariza nailed three 3-pointers. ... The Rockets defense, which held opponents under 100 points in their first seven games of the season, allowed more than 100 for the first time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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