The NBA season starts on Tuesday and for the 2015-16 slate players like Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, James Harden and Russell Westbrook are considered the favorites for the MVP award this season. Curry won the award over Harden last season and this year he will be one of the frontrunners to win most valuable player.
Curry is coming in after one of his best seasons and he helped the Warriors win the top seed in the western conference before winning the NBA title. Curry averaged 23 points, 7.7 assists and two steals per game last season and he took 100 of the 130 first place votes for the award. James Harden came in second place in the voting ahead of LeBron James, while Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis were next in the voting.
Westbrook had a strong season, but he was limited by injuries and down the back half of the season he stepped up with Kevin Durant out with a foot injury. Anthony Davis is considered to be one of the top young players in the league and an NBA.com poll among GMs in the league has him as the player second most likely to win the award. 86 percent of those GMs said they would pick Davis if they were starting a franchise today and could sign anyone in the NBA.
Davis had a strong season for the Pelicans and if he gets the team into the playoffs again, he should be in the MVP mix. James could also be in the mix again, but he got hurt a little bit by missing some games and voters felt that Curry and Harden deserved more praise last season. Durant will be in the mix if he can stay healthy and he comes in after averaging over 27 points per game for his career and he will be looking to bounce back after playing in just 27 games last season.
Davis averaged 24 points and 10 rebounds per game last season and if he makes more progress with the Pelicans, expect some voters to flock to Davis. Some other players that could be in the mix this season include Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Jimmy Butler, Marc Gasol and Kawhi Leonard as MVP candidates. James always is in the mix and the Cavaliers are considered to be one of the favorites in the east again after winning the conference last season.
The NBA players association had the "Players' Awards" last season for the first time and that voting had Harden as the MVP over Curry. Harden had a huge season and ranked second in the league in points per game. Harden also had to carry the Rockets for a while with Dwight Howard dealing with injury issues last season.
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