NBATV and NBA.com Reporter Lang Whitaker Joins Big Board Sports

As the NBA regular season winds down, NBATV and NBA.com reporter Lang Whitaker breaks down the future for a struggling Knicks franchise. Will Derrick Rose be back next season? Will New York shop Carmelo Anthony this summer? Who should the Knicks target in the draft?

The race for MVP is heating up and, in my mind, it comes down to two guys. Lang agrees, but we disagree on who should win the award. If I had a vote, it would go to James Harden. I know Russell Westbrook is doing things many of us, myself included, have never seen before the way he's racking up triple-doubles and averaging one for the season. Yes, Westbrook would be the first player to average a triple-double over the course of an entire season since Oscar Robertson in 1961-'62. But, the same way I try not to get caught up in stats when it comes to MVP races in Major League Baseball, I'm trying to do the same here. Harden has the Rockets in third place in the Western Conference and Houston is likely to finish with more wins than any team in the East. Westbrook's Thunder meanwhile, although still headed to the postseason despite the departure of Kevin Durant, are slotted right about where I would have picked them in the preseason; in the 6 or 7 spot in the West.