James Harden was named the 2018 MVP at this year’s NBA Awards. He held off Cleveland’s LeBron James, who was denied his fifth MVP trophy despite averaging 27.5 points and career-highs of 9.1 assists and 8.6 rebounds while playing in all 82 games in a regular season for the first time in his career.
Harden also beat out New Orleans’ Anthony Davis to become the third Rocket to win the award and first since Hakeem Olajuwon in 1993-94. Davis exploded after teammate DeMarcus Cousins went down with an Achilles injury, averaging 30.2 points, 11.9 rebounds, 3.2 blocks and 2.0 steals after Jan. 28.
Harden, though, was the league’s scoring champ, averaging 30.4 points while leading the Rockets to a franchise-record 65 victories. Harden was the fourth player to average at least 30 points per game and help lead his team to 65 wins, joining Stephen Curry, Michael Jordan (twice) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
Dwane Casey was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year on Monday night for a season in which he led the Toronto Raptors to their best regular season, only to be fired after they were ousted for a third straight playoffs by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Casey, who has since been hired as the head coach of the Detroit Pistons, led Toronto to a team-record 59 wins this past season and the top seed in the Eastern Conference, but he lost his job after the Raptors were swept by the Cavs.
Brad Stevens of the Boston Celtics and Quin Snyder of the Utah Jazz also were up for the award.
The Raptors’ record improved in six of seven seasons under Casey.
Philadelphia 76ers Ben Simmons beat out Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell and St. Louis native Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics and took home Rookie of the Year Honors.
Information from Espn.com contributed to this report.
