LeBron James captured his fourth career NBA MVP and his fourth one in the last five years yesterday. The Miami Heat superstar averaged 26.8 points per game along with 8 rebounds and 7.3 assists while leading the Heat to 66 wins and at one point a 27 game winning streak. James was the best player every single time on the court this year and is the main reason why the Miami Heat are heavy favorites to win their second consecutive NBA Title in June.
He received 120 first place votes and was one vote shy of becoming the first player in NBA history to be a unanimous MVP. That is how dominating James was this season. Out of all the greats to play this game not one has ever been a unanimous choice for the MVP award.
But he missed it by one vote. That one vote was from Boston Globe writer Gary Washburn. Washburn was the only person who had a vote who did not choose James. He picked Carmelo Anthony as his MVP.
I have been struggling all day to find a way to convince myself that Carmelo Anthony should be considered to win the MVP this year. Washburn backs up his choice of Anthony by stating that Anthony brought the Knicks to relevance this year after being nonexistent for over a decade and carried an old team to a division title, their first in 19 years, and that he won the scoring title. He believed Carmelo Anthony was more “valuable” than LeBron James because that is what the award is. The Most Valuable Player award not the “Best Player in the World” award.
But is Carmelo Anthony more valuable than LeBron James?
I do not believe so. Carmelo Anthony had an excellent year and down the stretch was great. He averaged 36.9 in the month of April and stole the scoring title from 3-time winner Kevin Durant. Anthony also led the Knicks to the number two seed in the Eastern Conference. Carmelo Anthony would be a strong MVP candidate most other years. But the 2012-2013 season was not like most other years.
LeBron James shot 56.5% from the field to Anthony’s 44.5%. James +/- for the season was +9.5 compared to Anthony’s +4.6. So, the Heat were a little more than nine points better with James on the floor while the Knicks were only a little over four points better with Anthony on the floor for the year. James accounted for 38.9% of the Heat’s total assists for the year while Anthony was responsible for only 17.7% of the New York Knicks assist total this season. And according to basketball-reference.com, LeBron James led the NBA in total win shares, offensive win shares, and player efficiency rating. Three stats I believe show truly valuable a player is. LeBron James had more to do with his team winning then any player in the entire NBA.
To furthermore prove that James was much more valuable then Anthony, I made them switch teams. So, LeBron James was on the Knicks and Caremlo Anthony was on the Heat. Is there any person who has watched James play basketball this season who honestly think the Knicks would not win more than 54 games with LeBron James at the helm? His playmaking, defense, and ability to torch any defense or double team that is thrown at him would make the Knicks the team to beat in the East. A team that made more threes then any other team in the league this year would be getting the seemingly wide open looks that Heat players Shane Battier, Ray Allen, and Mario Chalmers among others see nightly because of James’ godly skill set. And on the defnses, defense anchored by one of the best wing defenders in the league (James) and one of the best interior defenders in the league (last season’s Defensive Player of the Year award winner Tyson Chandler) would be destructive to opposing offenses.
If Knicks GM Glen Grunwald was somehow offered LeBron James for Carmelo Anthony straight up, there is no way in hell he would pass up on James. This right here proves Washburn’s idea that Anthony is the most valuable player to his team wrong. No one would ever trade the most valuable player in the league.
LeBron James is the best basketball player in the world and will most likely carry that title for the next few years. James is certainly the most valuable player in the NBA today. So even though Washburn’s vote for MVP is not meaningful in the grand scheme of things, LeBron James deserved to be the unanimous MVP this season. He was that good. LeBron James is one of only 5 players to average over 26 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists for a season. The other four, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson, and John Havlicek, are all in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Carmelo Anthony was good, but not that good.
Side Note: If someone one was really not going to vote for LeBron James as MVP, Kevin Durant seems like the much more logical choice. Durant’s season was so good that it has only been done by one other player, Larry Bird. I would not have written this piece if Durant had stolen a James vote because Durant’s season was historical in its own right.
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