LeBron James wins fourth MVP

How on earth did these awards get named "Most Valuable" instead of "Most Outstanding" in the first place?

 

Well, first it was all copied from baseball, and obviously the assumption was that valuable and outstanding were synonymous concepts. Of course, it was the NBA that demolished that idea in the great Russell-Chamberlain debates of the early '60s. If I had a vote, I'd of picked James, but Washburn's point in his column was that not just Anthony, but Durant, Curry, etc. could and should have gotten a vote or two as well, since the difference in performance and value between them and James wasn't THAT different as to merit near-unanimity.

 

except for the fact that James was better, even if only marginally, than Melo, Durant, Curry ...

If you could reduce to an equation. James might have been better by only 10 one hundreths of a point. But he's still more, objectively valuable or outstanding. So he deserved every 1st place vote.

Those who vote to deny someone unanimity or to prevent someone from getting into the HOF on the 1st try are merely attention whores.

 

At some point yesterday, Deadspin heard from someone's boyfriend's sister's girlfriend that Dan LeBatard was the non-James voter. So they sicced their minions on LeBatard. Whoops! Wasn't him!

http://deadspin.com/dan-le-batard-didnt-vote-for-lebron-james-for-nba-mvp-492822353

 

That's one of the reasons why I like how the NFL has the MVP and the offensive player of the year and very frequently, it's not the same person.

There have been a few times in baseball where the guy doesn't have stats that would typically merit winning a MVP, but they made a difference from the previous year and they win the award.

Gibson in 1988 jumps out at me. To a lesser extent, Larkin in 1995.

When I was covering baseball, I asked a seamhead whose opinion I really respected what was an example of the best player winning over someone who was clearly more valuable and he said Mattingly beating Brett in 1985.

 

You are punishing Lebron for having better teammates. Switch Anthony and Lebron and the Knicks record improves while the Heats would not.

 

Kirk Gibson was sixth in the NL in WAR, within 0.6 WAR of leader Orel Hershiser. Barry Larkin winning it over Greg Maddux is indefensible, but he, too, was very close to all the other position players, finishing sixth overall at 1.6 behind Barry Bonds but only 0.7 behind Reggie Sanders.

Neither of their MVP victories is particularly scrutinized beyond saying pitchers deserve more recognition.

 

Yeah, that seems more fair than "Take LeBron off the Heat and they still make the playoffs, but take Anthony off the Knicks and they're a lottery team."

Take the teammates out of the equation. Entirely.

 

Which is why I said it could be a talking point but probably not a good variable.

 

Kobe was awful defensively all year long. He was a part of why they disappointed, even with how phenomenal he was on the offensive side of the ball.

Even if we accept the premise of your and Washburn's arguments -- and I dont -- Melo missed 15 games and only played 86% as many minutes as LeBron. Being there has value, and Melo wasn't there for a large chunk of the season.

 

Agrees.

 

"Phenomenal" on offense is exactly right. Without that offense the Lakers shit the bed 7 ways till Sunday so you can forgive a 9-time 1st Team All-Defense -- with 50,000 miles on his legs -- for lacking on that side of the ball.