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MVP voters give weight to team record
Published on Monday, Feb 04, 2008
The case sure seems compelling.
When LeBron James plays, the Cavs are 12 games over .500 this season. When he sits, they are 0-6. He leads the NBA in scoring and, more importantly, in fourth-quarter scoring. He's averaging career highs in assists, rebounds and field goal percentage.
He's developing a killer instinct — his supposed biggest flaw, listening to national pundits — and doing it right before everyone's eyes as he's led the Cavs to 18 fourth-quarter comeback wins so far this season.
Not to mention, in a departure from seasons past, he and the Cavs have been dynamite when they've been on national television. They've won the last six games they've played on TNT, ESPN or ABC. Those performances have featured James flatly outplaying competitors like Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan, to name a few.
So this very well could be the year that James gets his first Most Valuable Player Award, right? After all, no one can compete with his stats and his profile has never been higher.
Um, no, at least not at this point.
The Beacon Journal contacted 35 likely MVP voters to take the race's temperature. There are roughly 125 voters, so this is a healthy sample, and it was spread around to all areas of the country to avoid any Eastern or Western Conference bias.
So how many think James is the MVP right now?
The answer, if you are a James fan, might surprise you. If you've followed the NBA for any period of time, though, it probably won't.
James got just four votes, and even some of those were tentative and came with caveats from the voters. It's the
same number of voters who believe New Orleans point guard Chris Paul, who just became an All-Star for the first time, is the MVP of the moment. That tied him for second with James in the poll, ahead of Bryant, who got three votes.
New Boston Celtics arrival Kevin Garnett is the leader right now, getting 63 percent of the vote. Garnett's game numbers (19.9 points, 9.9 rebounds and 3.8 assists) can't match James' and, obviously, he's gotten way more support from his teammates than James has. It would seem that calling him most valuable would be counterintuitive.
But there are two things to realize about MVP voting. First, it's highly fluid. Even now, these results mean very little other than a conversational litmus test. Second, no matter what the numbers suggest, the honor often goes to a player on a team with one of the top three or four records in the league. Or, as one national NBA columnist wrote in an e-mail when casting his vote for Garnett:
''I give more weight to the team's record. . . . That being said, I would point out that Rudy Giuliani was leading the Republican field a few weeks ago.''
Point well taken. Two years ago, a smaller and much less scientific poll over All-Star Weekend didn't have James in the top five in MVP voting 50 games into the season. That weekend, he won the All-Star Game MVP in Houston and then led the Cavs to a sizzling finish over the last 30 games. He ended up second in the MVP voting behind Phoenix Suns two-time winner Steve Nash.
Right now, the Cavs are just the fourth-best team in the weaker conference. James may be dazzling individually but the Celtics are a feel-good story and seemingly on their way to 60 wins.
Garnett doesn't rank in the top 10 in the NBA in scoring or rebounding at the moment. In 2004, when he won the MVP as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Garnett was third in scoring and first in rebounding. More importantly, the Wolves had the second-best record in the league at 58-24.
As James has contended for MVPs in the past, it has often been pointed out that the last player to win the top honor on a team winning fewer than 50 games was Moses Malone with the Houston Rockets in 1982. James and the Cavs have barely reached 50 the last two seasons and this year would have to finish 24-12 to get there again.
Even then, something that impressive, paired with three more months of the sort of inspired play James has shown so far this season, might not be enough. Especially with the Los Angeles Lakers and Bryant perhaps garnering more attention with the arrival of Pau Gasol.
Putting anything past James isn't smart money. He has exceeded expectations throughout his young career.
After all, he's proved to be quite the finisher to both games and seasons.
As of this moment, though, he simply isn't the favorite.
Brian Windhorst can be reached at bwindhor@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/cavs/.
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