Kevin Durant, welcome to the MVP race

Stephen Curry might have a solid hold on the early returns of the NBA's most valuable player race, but Kevin Durant, who won the award two seasons ago, is starting to close in.

In this week's panel of voters made up of USA TODAY Sports media group members, Durant moved from being out of the top 5 to third in the poll, just behind LeBron James and Curry.

Durant has scored 24 points, got 7.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists in the past four games and the Thunder was 3-1 over that span.

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He's coming back from injury that caused him to miss most of last season and is starting to resemble the player he was before the injury.

Curry led the voting with 30 points overall, and all first-place votes. James was second with 21 points, Durant third with 16, Kawhi Leonard was fourth with 13, Paul George was fifth with seven points.