To no ones great surprise, LeBron James has won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award for the fourth time. James now joins a rather heady group of Hall of Fame NBA players whose names are known to anyone who has ever followed the game.
Kareen Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain are the only other members of the club, we are talking about legends here.
The outcome of the MVP vote was never in doubt after about mid-way through the season when James went on a hot streak and averaged 30 points per game. For six consecutive games, he shot 60% from the floor and his streak led to the whole team winning 27 games in a row during February, the second longest winning streak in the history of the NBA.
On the year, so far, James has averaged 26.8 points per game, captured 8 rebounds and made 7.3 assists per game and even added 1.7 steals per game to the stats.
As impressive as these numbers are, they still do not tell the whole story of LeBron’s value to the Miami Heat. Ever notice how James always ends up defending the other team’s best player regardless of position? That’s not normal and very few players have ever been able to do it.
On offense James is simply awesome. He is overwhelming to the degree that most defenders have developed the strategy of either getting out of his way, or fouling him to prevent the bucket that will surely drop at the end of his drive.
But James does not hog the ball and take all the good shots. He works the defense inside looking for his shot but, if he sees an open team mate in scoring position, he will kick the ball out to him and trust his buddy to make the basket. And that drive, that finish that LeBron displays in every game has got to be the most devastating fast break in all of basketball.
In the past calendar year, James has won the NBA Championship, the NBA Finals MVP as well as this years’ MVP Award. He also won a gold medal at the London Olympics. Overall, not a bad year.
So, LeBron James joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (6), Michael Jordan (5), Bill Russell (5) and Wilt Chamberlain (4) as the only four-time winners of the MVP. Bookmakers are probably already laying odds in when James will top them all with 7!
