Stats that prove Antetokounmpo deserves MVP hype

Look: Unless Russell Westbrook or James Harden are suddenly done for the rest of the season or the Milwaukee Bucks suddenly vault from the ninth seed to No. 2 in the East, there's probably no way Giannis Antetokounmpo is even close to winning MVP.

But let's stop for a second and give some serious appreciation to a player not averaging a triple-double (or close to one, in Harden's case), and maybe I'll convince someone to give him a vote.

The Greek Freak is having a positively bonkers season - after posting a 32-point, 11-rebound, 6-assist game with three blocks and a steal in a loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, his full-season stats look like this:

23.7 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 5.6 apg, 2.1 bpg, 1.8 spg

That means something amazing is happening in Milwaukee: He leads the team in every single one of those categories.

It turns out that's happened before in the NBA, but it's a serious rarity. From Forbes:

He has a chance to lead his team to the playoffs and in five different categories - points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. That has been done only four times in NBA history, by some of the game's all-time greats: Dave Cowens, Scottie Pippen, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James.

Whoa. He's got the potential to join current and future Hall of Famers with the season he's having.

Back to the numbers themselves - has anyone ever had a 23/8/5/2/1 season? The answer is: Yes. It was done twice by a guy named … Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. From Basketball Reference:

"Freak" couldn't be a more apt nickname.