Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron James’ MVP position after All-Star break
By Ryan Piers
The second half of the 2017-18 NBA season is about to begin. Is LeBron James the frontrunner to win the MVP or is another primed to take it?
The Cleveland Cavaliers‘ reality TV-like season is providing plenty of up and downs, but LeBron James‘ play remains steady. The forward continues to dominate, putting up numbers resembling days when his hairline wasn’t so short.
Offensively, James is churning out another excellent season. His 26.5 points per game are slightly below his career average, but he’s on pace for a career high in assists (8.9 per game) and a career best in rebounds (8.1 per game).
Per usual, James finds himself in the thick of the MVP race, and this year his fellow frontrunners are strong.
The NBA appears to be at a crossroads with players who entered the league in the late 2000s still in their primes, while young upstarts emerge as budding superstars. At this point, you can boil James’ competition down to three formidable opponents.
Here are LeBron’s biggest competitors for the award and the odds that he will take MVP trophy relative to each player.