NBA MVP Winners: Ranking the 10 Greatest MVP seasons EVER

#8 Russell Westbrook: 2016-17

Russell Westbrook with his MVP award (Image courtesy: usatoday.com)

Season Averages: 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, 10.4 assists

Russell Westbrook became the second player in NBA history to average a triple-double over the course of a regular season, the first being Robertson in the 1961-62 season. In the process of averaging a triple-double, he also broke the record for most triple-doubles in a single season (42), also previously held by Robertson in the same 1961-62 season.

An incredible part of the season was that, unlike the recent culture of resting players for the postseason, Westbrook played in 81 of the 82 games. Now, this is real, that the team needed him to play all of those games but it's noteworthy how valuable his triple-doubles were for the team. In the 42 instances that he recorded a triple-double, the Thunder won 78.5% of their games (33-9).

Not just that, he led the league in PER (30.63) and single-handedly carried the Oklahoma City Thunder to the 2017 Playoffs as the sixth seed with 48 wins. He's the only MVP since the 1982-83 to not win at least 50 games in the regular season.

While the obvious positive about this season is the triple-double feat. It ranks so low on the list as Westbrook wasn't exactly efficient, nobody might be able to be more efficient given the volume of scoring the team needed from him. That combined with the fact that the team's record (48 wins) wasn't as great as the other seasons on this list.