James Harden is Our NBA MVP at the All-Star Break

NBA All-Star Break 2017 Superlatives

James Harden is the MVP of the NBA...if the season ended today. If you somehow haven't been paying attention, Harden has been dominant for the Houston Rockets this year. He's averaging just under 30 points a game and is flourishing in Mike D'Antoni's system. Sure, Russell Westbrook is also going off this year, but Harden is elevating the Rockets to elite status with 40 victories and third place in the Western Conference. They're a lock for 50 wins on a team that doesn't feature close to the talent of Golden State or San Antonio, and that should mean the MVP is Harden's to lose. —Zach Frydenlund

I can make an argument for Kawhi Leonard, who basically ends up guarding the best scorer every night for the Spurs, whether that's LeBron, Carmelo, or whoever. I can also make a case for Hassan Whiteside who is doing man's work down in Miami, grabbing 14.1 boards per game and averaging 2.1 blocks a night for the surging Heat. But we're giving the nod to Draymond Green, despite Leonard's literal grip on the Defensive Player of the Year award the past two seasons. Green just might be the ultimate jack of all trades in the NBA, serving as the anchor to the league's second best defensive squad, according to efficiency rankings. And he's been pretty open about the fact he's low-key gunning to be recognized as the game's best defensive player at the end of the season. Just like Leonard, Draymond usually draws the toughest assignment on a nightly basis. He pulls down more than 8.2 boards a night, averages 1.5 blocks per game, and swipes as many steals a night as Leonard. So the stats are in his favor. His team is obviously the best in the league. And he's a disrupter. That's good enough for me.  —Adam Caparell

Since joining the Memphis Grizzlies, Zach Randolph has been vital to the team's success. His no-nonsense and tough style of play have fit perfectly with the team's grit-and-grind ethos, and his numbers and ability to go get a basket when the team absolutely needs one have led to a lot of Ws. Yet despite all of this, Z-Bo has been overshadowed by nearly everyone else on the Grizzlies, from Rudy Gay (now with the Kings), to Marc Gasol, to Mike Conley, and even Vince Carter's corpse. Randolph is often named well after several players on his team. This year Randolph was forced to check himself by coming off the bench. And what has he done? The same thing he's always done; get buckets and boards to the tune of 14 and 8 off the bench. For a player who had been maligned throughout his career for his bad, "me first" attitude, Z-Bo's play proves that a lot of people got him wrong and, maybe, we should start talking about him more. —Rich Maze Lopez

Can a player have two breakout seasons? We’d call Isaiah Thomas the first, except he managed to get even better after the 2015-16 season when he made enough noise to be named an All-Star for the first time in his career. The 28-year-old Boston Celtics point guard is averaging 29.8 points per game—up from 22.2 points last season—and has scored 20 or more points in 40 consecutive games. After he led the league in scoring (32.9 PPG) and tied for fifth in the East in assists (6.9 APG), it was only right that he was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month for January. He’s shooting a league-high 91.8% from the free-throw line, and if that’s not enough, no one is averaging more points in the fourth quarter than Thomas. Even Tom Brady thinks Thomas belongs in the winners circle. —Dria Roland

We are playing in the age of Mike D'Antoni. In today’s 3-point happy NBA, the veteran coach has caught a bad rap stemming from his unfortunate stints with the Knicks and Lakers. Nevermind that he's an offensive genius who turned Steve Nash into a future Hall of Famer, essentially made Jeremy Lin's career, and is now working his magic in Houston with James Harden. Steve Kerr bit D'Antoni's whole style after essentially running him out of town when he was the GM of the Suns once upon a time. He still doesn’t coach defense, which is a legit knock on his legacy, but his vision of space and an open three being the best shot in basketball has revolutionized the game as we know it. Give him the COY right now. Plus, the Rockets with Harden and a bunch of scrubs have 40 wins at the break. They had 41 all of last season. Put him in the Hall of Fame. —Angel Diaz