LeBron James is at the top of the basketball world with
back-to-back NBA MVPs and Finals MVPs under his belt. As if that wasn’t enough,
he’s off to a white-hot start already only ten games into the 2013-14 NBA
season (62 percent shooting from the field and 52 percent from three). Even with an already astounding resume, the reality is that LeBron should have not four, but six MVPs, at age 28.
The 2006 NBA MVP race has gone down infamously in history as the
MVP that Steve Nash should not have won. Popular opinion has given
the nod to Kobe Bryant in that race. Then again in 2011, LeBron was robbed at
the hands of a young superstar point guard, Derrick Rose. MVP voting in the history of the NBA
is certainly filled with suspicious results, but these are two glaring mistakes.
To the voters’ credit, they don’t have an easy task. NBA
voting must take into account more than who is the best player at a position in
the league (most NFL MVPs are quarterbacks unless a running back has a historic
season) or who is the best offensive player in the league (defense does factor
into an NBA players success while in the NFL a player is only on one side of
the ball and for baseball, defensive skill is given little consideration for
the most part).
But the 2006 race really gets me because not only did the
voters get it wrong, but most NBA fans (who believe Kobe Bryant should have won the award) got it wrong, as well.
Kobe Bryant did join an exclusive club in 2006 by averaging
an incredible 35.4 points per game, becoming only the fifth player in NBA
history to do so (Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Rick Barry, and Elgin
Baylor). He was certainly more deserving that Nash. But LeBron James managed a nearly equally impressive 31.4 points per
game while racking up two assists per game more than Bryant. So if you were to
look at scoring output for the team (points + assists x 2), Bryant and LeBron had equal scoring outputs—and both greater
than Steve Nash.
Statistic (2006)
|
LeBron James
|
Steve Nash
|
Kobe Bryant
|
PER
|
28.1
|
23.3
|
28.0
|
Win shares per 48
|
.232
|
.212
|
.224
|
Points
|
31.4
|
18.8
|
35.4
|
Rebounds
|
7.0
|
4.2
|
5.3
|
Assists
|
6.6
|
10.5
|
4.5
|
Steals
|
1.6
|
0.8
|
1.8
|
FG percentage
|
.480
|
.512
|
.450
|
FT percentage
|
.738
|
.921
|
.850
|
Team record
|
50 – 32
|
54 – 28
|
45 – 37
|
The individual statistics for 2006 give the clear advantage
to LeBron, with the highest numbers posted in two of the more telling metrics
for an individual player: PER and WS/48. PER measures efficiency and WS/48
measures a player’s contribution to the team and a combination of the two
really do allude to a team’s “most valuable player.”
Both Bryant and James had terrible supporting casts in 2006,
so that point is moot. This was the first playoff appearance of LeBron’s career
and he sustained a more elite level of play throughout the season that peaked
with a nine-game stretch in which he averaged 39 points, eight assists, and
seven rebounds per game. That hadn’t been done since Oscar Robertson in 1965. Without a doubt, this stretch is more impressive for an MVP-caliber season than Kobe Bryant’s 81-point show vs. Toronto.
(And of course, James was the better defender—a claim that defensive win shares
and the individual defensive rating metrics support.)
The voters were scared to give the MVP award to a
21-year-old kid who had broken onto the NBA scene and nearly immediately taken
over the game. At that time, the youngest MVP winner was 23-year-old Wes Unseld
from way back in 1969 (we’ll get to who the youngest MVP is currently
soon enough). And when competitors like Bryant and Nash had both posted
impressive numbers they made the excuse to vote against the player who had
truly earned the right to the award. If you give a barely legal adult the MVP
already, will the motivation for the rest of his career dwindle? That very well could have
played into the logic of the voters because clearly the Akron native should
have taken home the 2006 MVP honors.
In 2011, somehow Derrick Rose ran away with the MVP. While
this came as little surprise to most people, most everything about that season
shows that not only was LeBron James more deserving…but so was Dwight Howard!
The leftover hatred of LeBron’s ESPN “special” where he articulated his desire to take his talents
to South Beach had to have something to do with it because, again, the numbers
clearly show LeBron was more deserving than Derrick Rose (and Dwight Howard).
Statistic (2011)
|
LeBron James
|
Derrick Rose
|
Dwight Howard
|
PER
|
27.3
|
23.5
|
26.1
|
Win shares per 48
|
.244
|
.208
|
.235
|
Points
|
26.7
|
25.0
|
22.9
|
Rebounds
|
7.5
|
4.1
|
14.1
|
Assists
|
7.0
|
7.7
|
1.4
|
Steals
|
1.6
|
1.0
|
1.4
|
FG percentage
|
.510
|
.445
|
.593
|
FT percentage
|
.759
|
.858
|
.596
|
Team record
|
58 – 24
|
62 – 20
|
52 – 30
|
The only individual statistics above that Derrick Rose beat
LeBron in were assists, by a marginal amount, and free throw percentage. It wasn’t like a battle of deciding which
position meant more to their team. At least Nash (in 2006) had the 50-40-90 numbers and
10+ assists going for him. In 2011, Rose was a scorer…who was not a better scorer than
LeBron.
The Big Three gained infamy that year for losing to the
Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals, but the fact that it was a “Big Three”
doesn’t lessen LeBron’s impact on the team. One could make a very strong argument that the Bulls
without Derrick Rose would have done just fine. The Heat without LeBron would
not have been pretty. Just look at the Bulls performance in 2013 without their
star point guard…a laudable semifinal appearance. Statistically, LeBron and
D-Rose’s relative contribution to their respective teams in 2011 show LeBron was the
more valuable player (higher efficiency, PER, and overall contribution to the
team, WS/48, among other parameters).
Ironically, in 2011 the voters had no problem breaking
Cousy’s record for youngest MVP award. At 22 years old, the Chicago native
became the youngest MVP in NBA history. Maybe LeBron’s brilliance at such a
young age helped pave the way for voters to feel more comfortable giving the
award to someone so young?
I won’t claim to get into the voters heads, but I will say
this: LeBron James should be a six-time MVP right
now. And that would put him in the debate for top-five greatest players of all time…at age 28.
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