Does Cristiano Ronaldo deserve to win the 2017 Ballon d'Or?

He surely deserves to.

In terms of titles, he won the two most important titles at club level : The domestic league and the Champions League. He can still add Confederations Cup, UEFA Super Cup, and Spanish Super Cup to his collection.

In terms of end product, he had a 1.17 goal+assist/game in UCL and La Liga. This might not look really good compared to Ronaldo’s sky-high standards, but there are several things to consider :

1- Injury : Ronaldo started the season on the sidelines due to his knee injury, which was initially expected to keep him out for 4–5 months, but he came back 2 months after the final, which suggests he came back a bit too early. Also, the guy is 32 and had knee issues since ’14 so recovery would be harder for him. It was following this injury when Ronaldo was said to have “the worst period of his career”, and it obviously lowered his overall end product.

2- Rest and rotation : In La Liga, Ronaldo missed 9 games, 5 of which came against bottom 5 teams. Not only that, but he was clearly instructed to not put much effort into games against weaker teams in order to save his energy to the decisive end of the season.
Significantly reducing effort = significantly reducing movement = Ronaldo losing his main strength = A decline in his product.

3- Benzema as a regular attacking partner : People can say what they want about how he opens up spaces or whatever, but the fact of the matter is : Benzema was terrible for about 90% of the season. He scored his 10th league goal in the 37th week ! In La Liga and UCL, he had just 21 goals and assists. Having such an attacking partner is bound to hurt you.

Still, it’s importance and decisiveness where Ronaldo really wins the battle.
Overall, he carried the attack on his back. How ? Ronaldo, Morata and Benzema (in that order) were Real’s top goal contributors in UCL and La Liga, Benzema and Morata combined had 44 goals and assists. Ronaldo had 49 goals and assists. No explanation needed !

He was crucial to his side winning La Liga, proving particularly decisive in the high-pressure final month, scoring 6 against Valencia, Celta, Sevilla and Malaga. Overall, Ronaldo’s goals and assists won Real an 18 points, despite being losing many points (8) due to a meaningless goals coming in the last 10 minutes.

In UCL, he takes it to a whole another level. Since UCL started in 92/93, no one scored 10 in the KO stages in one season. CR7 did it in the 5 games starting in the QF, and he scored these goals against Bayern & Neuer, Atleti & Oblak, and Juve & Buffon. Overall, Ronaldo had 12 goal contributions (goals+assists) in the knockout phase this season, which is equal to bigger than the number any MSN member had over the last 3 seasons (14/15–16/17 : Messi : 10 - Suarez : 12 - Neymar : 12).
That’s beyond words like “incredible” or “insane”.
Champions League was Ronaldo’s show this season more than any Champions League was any player’s show any season, ever.

EDIT :
Before anyone says that Ronaldo did what he did because he plays with a super team that makes it easy for him, consider this :

I watched almost every Real league game and I can assure you that the team put on bad (not average) performances much more often than not. Real Madrid won the league because they managed to win when they were bad … so many times, not because they were good throughout. Their UCL group stage wasn’t so good either.
Ronaldo’s 2 first goals against Bayern came when the team was trailing.
Against Atleti (1st leg), Ronaldo had 4 shots : 3 were goals, the 4th came from outside the area. It isn’t like he kept getting chances non-stop.
Against Juve, Ronaldo’s 1st goal came when Juve were crushing Real Madrid. Shots in the first 30 minuts : Juventus 6 - 1 Real Madrid
Ronaldo contributed in (scored/assisted) 60% of Real Madrid’s goals in the KO stages. That’s very high, by the way. A typical value for the likes of Lewandowski, Muller, and Messi, who have been the best KO stage goal contributors after Ronaldo for the past 5 seasons, is around 30%-40%.
Not to mention how Ronaldo’s outstanding off-the-ball work makes it much, much easier for teammates to make chances for him. Juventus, a team known for allowing little to no space, just couldn’t contain the guy.