Former Warriors coach Mark Jackson says James Harden deserves MVP

Former Golden State Warriors head coach Mark Jackson had a less-than-amicable split with the organization that fired him this summer and replaced him with current Coach of the Year candidate Steve Kerr. (Said Jackson of Kerr's success: "You cannot disrespect the caterpillar and rave about the butterfly.")

But while the fallout saw Jackson and Warriors owner Joe Lacob engaged in a war of words in the media, Jackson's players mostly stood by him, and none more so than point guard and current MVP candidate Steph Curry. 

Not that that puts any responsibility on Jackson - now back to being an ostensibly impartial ESPN analyst - to endorse Curry for MVP. But one might reasonably still have expected him to. 

Because radio host Dan Patrick appears determined to take everyone's temperature in regards to this year's hotly-contested race, Jackson had a chance to weigh in when he was on Patrick's show on Thursday.

"It'd be awfully tough," Jackson said. "I think there's four guys in the discussion in LeBron (James), (Russell) Westbrook, Curry and (James) Harden. If you twisted my arm today, I would probably vote for James Harden. The reason why is because he singlehandedly has put that Houston Rockets team in the position that they're in today.

"It'd be tough. I think Steph Curry, I'm totally fine with, obviously. He's my guy. I'm fine with selecting him. The season that he's had has been incredible. Westbrook, with 10 triple-doubles and carrying that team, injury-prone, into the playoffs. LeBron being the best player in the world. But I think right now I would go with James Harden because of what he's done, and he's stepped up his game defensively. He's not a great defender, but he's competing on the defensive end."

Warriors center Andrew Bogut - who, for the record, is not one of the guys who's vouched for his departed coach - got wind of Jackson's comments and took a couple jabs. 

- With h/t to Eye on Basketball