LeBron James: The Case For MVP

This season has been insane, with both the Eastern and Western conferences respectively wide open, though for different reasons. Teams all over the league are surprising, failing, and rising, and with it comes the most level playing field for the rights to the MVP award than we’ve seen in years.

Stephen Curry has his Golden State Warriors in first place in the entire NBA; James Harden has started playing defense to go along with his beastly offensive prowess; Anthony Davis has forced us to question several times this season whether he’s mortal or not.

Yet, through all this babble one man stands somewhere in a gym, rehabbing his body and preparing himself for a return to the game he loves. A game which he has been the ruler of for multiple years now. Nobody has mentioned his name in the MVP talks this season.

No one has spoken about LeBron James.

Make no mistake, all of the other players receiving praise are worthy of it. They’ve done spectacular jobs in their own right and are all deserving of consideration for the NBA’s most heralded individual award.

It is mind-boggling, however, that such a great hush has fallen over the world (save Cleveland) like an amnesiac fog. No longer is James even being considered in the conversation, it seems.

This in itself makes no logical sense. Why should we exclude James? Is it voter fatigue? Is it because his team has been disappointing in the standings and even worse to watch? Is it because he set the bar so high for himself in previous seasons and is now not performing at quite the same level he used to?

Certainly we do not judge other players this way. There is an unconscious level of bias surrounding our views of LeBron James, especially in terms of MVP consideration, that is not present when speaking or thinking of, say, James Harden.

This bias blinds us to what James has and is accomplishing this season.

Forget that James is a four-time MVP. Forget that he is a two-time NBA champion. Forget all of the personal accolades he’s collected throughout his career and just focus on him as a player, as we do with the rest of the league’s best.

If we can do that, then we may start to look at why James is still the NBA’s best player.

First, to give us an idea of his competition, here are the players deservedly also in the MVP race:

Stephen Curry
James Harden
Marc Gasol
Anthony Davis
Jeff Teague
John Wall
Jimmy Butler

One of the most important things in considering the MVP should always be this: how well will said player’s team fair without said player on the roster? Would they be all right, or would it be a significant blow?

This gives a weaker case for Curry, Gasol, Teague and Butler. Each of them has a key role on their respective team and has performed it exceptionally well, but if they were removed from their club the rest of their team would still be good enough to roll forward.

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This is because of the help surrounding them: Klay Thompson, Andrew Bogut, Andre Iguodala and more on Golden State; Zach Randolph and Mike Conley in Memphis; Paul Millsap and Al Horford on Atlanta; Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose for Chicago. Even Harden has Dwight Howard to hold things down in Houston.

One may wish to argue that James has Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, though as we’ve seen from years past, neither can push their team forward significantly (to the playoffs).

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been without LeBron now since he last played against the Detroit Pistons back on Dec. 28. In that time, the team has gone 1-8, with their sole victory coming against a reeling Charlotte Hornets squad.

They’ve gone from being 18-11 before James was injured (not great, not awful) to 19-19 without him.

Granted, the Cavaliers have dealt with a lot of other injuries as well and guys playing through them. Yet, they could not even put a victory together over this season’s Philadelphia 76ers team. Even with mixed parts and semi-hurt players, that game still should’ve been a victory.

Despite the Cavaliers looking mediocre with James on the floor (which they were), they have looked like a complete and utter disaster without him. It is safe to say that hypothetically pulling James off of this Cleveland team would spell doom for them.

On top of this, James is the only one of these players who is on a “new” team with new teammates and a new head coach. He is doing his absolute best to pull this squad together through his play and spouts of leadership, while dealing with injuries to himself and the rest of his club. The load James has had to handle mentally, then, can be viewed as significantly heavier than that of any other of the listed players mentioned.

It is also very important to note that while the rest of the MVP candidates have remained relatively healthy (Gasol and Davis have had a few scrapes and bruises), LeBron has openly stated that he has not felt well all season long. This means that what he’s done so far this season has been muted by nagging pain.

For an injury-riddled player, he’s been having a pretty nice statistical season.

Let’s first compare the average stat lines:

Stephen Curry: 22.9 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 8.0 APG, 2.2 SPG, 49.3 FG%, 39.1 3P%, 92.5 FT%
James Harden: 26.8 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 6.6 APG, 1.8 SPG, 43.8 FG%, 36.4 3P%, 89.6 FT%
Marc Gasol: 19.7 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 3.6 APG, 1.6 BPG, 50.4 FG%, 80.4 FT%
Anthony Davis: 23.8 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 1.6 APG, 1.5 SPG, 2.9 BPG, 56.5 FG%, 81.0 FT%
Jeff Teague: 17.5 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 7.2 APG, 1.7 SPG, 48.6 FG%, 36.1 3P%, 86.7 FT%
John Wall: 17.2 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 10.3 APG, 2.1 SPG, 45.7 FG%, 29.9 3P%, 76.6 FT%
Jimmy Butler: 21.0 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 3.4 APG, 1.7 SPG, 46.6 FG%, 33.3 3P%, 82.7 FT%
LeBron James: 25.2 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 7.6 APG, 1.3 SPG, 48.8 FG%, 36.9 3P%, 74.3 FT%

Looking simply at this, James fits right in with all of the other candidates. So now we’ll dive into a bit more depth.

In terms of PER, only Curry (27.1), Harden (26.4) and Davis (31.0) have a higher one than James (25.1).

LeBron is also only second to Harden in scoring this season, sitting at 25.2 points per game.

While his competition all thrives on teams currently better than his (save perhaps Davis), LeBron at 30 years old is the eldest player in the MVP conversation. Reminding oneself that he’s been feeling unwell since day one, it’s remarkable to note that James is third in the NBA in minutes per game behind only Butler (39.8) and his teammate Kyrie Irving (38.0).

Along with this, he’s also got a usage percentage of 30.7, meaning he’s almost always the player on his team who has to create something (often out of nothing).

Even more impressive is his assist percentage, which sits at 38.6. The only player with one higher than James on this list is Curry (a point guard) at 39.4 percent. But when you look at the Warriors’ roster compared to the Cavaliers’, it is obvious that those dimes James accumulates are more impressive.

Finally, let’s take a gander at how James has played against his MVP competition as well as just regular games in general.

LeBron has had eight 30+ point games this season, two 40+ point games and 11 double-doubles out of the 29 games he’s played.

Key performances include:

Oct. 31 @ Chicago: 36 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals, 1 block, W
Nov. 10 vs New Orleans: 32 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, W
Nov. 15 vs Atlanta: 32 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 block, 65.0 FG%, 80.0 3P%, W
Nov. 26 vs Washington: 29 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals, W
Dec. 12 @ New Orleans: 41 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 block, 70.8 FG%, L
Dec. 21 vs Memphis: 25 points, 1 rebound, 11 assists, 1 block, 60.0 FG%, 60.0 3P%, W

Unfortunately, James has sat out the only times the Cavaliers have played the Warriors and Rockets, so we have nothing from him going up against Curry and Harden’s respective squads. However, I think it’s plain to see from these other matchups that he would likely have had a strong game against both of them.

So while the world continues to speak of Gasol and Wall in such a glowing manner, keep this in mind: LeBron James is working his way back, and he knows the masses don’t think his “injury-riddled” numbers deserve to even keep him in the conversation for MVP.

And once his body is back at 100 percent, I wouldn’t expect him to take too kindly to that notion.

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