This was expected. Not only had it been pretty obvious, then it leaked, then even his main competition said he deserved it.
Kevin Durant is the NBA’s MVP, the league announced Tuesday.
He is second no more.
Durant won the award going away, collecting 119 of the 125 first place votes (124 of those cast by media members, one by fan vote, you can see the voting results here). The other six went to LeBron James, who finished second in the voting. Those two were well ahead of the rest of the pack.
Blake Griffin of the Clippers finished third, Joakim Noah of the Bulls fourth and James Harden of the Rockets fifth.
Durant averaged 32 points a game (his fourth scoring title in five years) with a ridiculous true shooting percentage of 63.5 percent, while also pulling down 7.4 rebounds and dishing out 5.5 assists per game. More than that, he stepped up his play when Russell Westbrook went down injured, keeping the team at the top of the Western Conference and making them contenders. He was efficient both as a scorer and a playmaker. Yes, the peak of LeBron is a still a better player than Durant, but KD played at his peak all season while LeBron did not (particularly defensively).
Here is a wrap up of the voting (with point totals in parenthesis).
Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City (1,232)
LeBron James, Miami (891)
Blake Griffin, L.A. Clippers (434)
Joakim Noah, Chicago (322)
James Harden, Houston (85)
Stephen Curry, Golden State (66)
Chris Paul, L.A. Clippers (45)
Al Jefferson, Charlotte (34)
Paul George, Indiana (33)
LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland (26)
Kevin Love, Minnesota (25)
Tim Duncan, San Antonio (21)
Tony Parker, San Antonio (21)
Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas (7)
Carmelo Anthony, New York (4)
Goran Dragic, Phoenix (3)
Mike Conley, Memphis (1)
