Westbrook won't make MVP pick, but says Harden 'leading the charge'

The reigning NBA MVP doesn't have a personal pick for the award this season.

"Nah, I don't have a pick," Russell Westbrook told ESPN's Tim MacMahon on Saturday. "There's a lot of guys doing a lot of great things in the league."

The front-runner for this year's MVP is Westbrook's former teammate James Harden, who finished runner-up last year and has led the Houston Rockets to an NBA-best 64-15 record. Harden would be the third member of the early-2010s Oklahoma City Thunder to earn the league's highest individual honor, after Westbrook and Kevin Durant.

Durant has already given Harden his stamp of approval, saying that "it's his turn." Asked whether he feels the same, Westbrook demurred.

"I'm not sure," he said. "Obviously he's having a good year, a great year. Their team has the best record in the NBA. I'm not sure."

Westbrook pointed out, as so many others have, that the award means different things to different people from one season to the next.

"Honestly, I don't know kind of what you go off of, because MVP's kind of been picked differently every year," he said. "So, it depends what criteria, what it is that you guys vote for. Obviously (Harden) is leading the charge at the moment."

Westbrook's MVP season broke with precedent, since the Thunder finished just sixth in the Western Conference at 47-35, the worst record for an MVP's team since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the award for the 40-42 Lakers in 1975-76. Harden's season, though, has combined extraordinary statistical production with remarkable team success, making his case pretty difficult to argue.

Westbrook's Thunder, clinging to a playoff spot in the overcrowded West, will face Harden's Rockets on Saturday night.