Kevin Durant: NBA MVP?

Kevin Durant has been playing out of his mind ever since the ball dropped to ring in the new year. The man, or beast, that is The Durantula may need a back brace soon because he has been carrying his Oklahoma City Thunder since the loss of Russell Westbrook in late December. Durant has been putting on a clinic since his all-star teammate went down. KD has the four of the highest point totals in the NBA this season and they have all come in the month of January and are all above 45 points.

I'm not going to throw all of the stats at you, but there are a few that jump off the page and need to be noted:

• Durant is averaging 36.3 points in 18 games since Russell Westbrook went down with an injury. The Thunder are 13-5 in those games.

• He's averaging 37 points per game in January on 52.4% shooting. It's the highest scoring month of his career (counting only months in which he played multiple games). Coincidentally, three of Durant's four highest scoring months have come in January. He averaged 32.1 points in January 2010 and 31.6 points in January 2013.

• Durant has twelve straight games scoring at least 30 points. No other NBA player has a streak longer than four games this season. Durant’s five games of at least 40 points are three more than anyone else in the NBA.

• Durant has scored at least 30 points and handed out at least four assists in each of his past twelve games. 

The stats are mind blowing. The guy is second to none right now and is showing no signs of letting off the gas pedal. He looks more determined than ever and I personally cannot wait to watch him down the stretch this season. Durant's torrid pace helped him finish second in the league and first in the Western Conference in All-Star Game voting. He was second to none other than LeBron James who racked up 1,416,419 votes, but Kevin Durant was right behind him with an impressive 1,396,294 votes.

The recently nicknamed Slim Reaper essentially has the MVP trophy locked up in my opinion and it's not even February yet. Barring an unforeseen plummet in his statistics when Westbrook returns, Durant seems to finally be in line for that elusive first MVP award.

http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/83381/top-stats-to-know-durants-dominance