2016-17 MVP Discussion Thread Pt 3 (season finale)

[Young_Star11]

Agree that it is hard to make the above argument when you have Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on the same team!

Ultimately LeBron cares about winning in June.

[therealbig3]

If your argument is that Lebron can't win regular season games because Lebron doesn't have any all-star teammates that lead a team in the playoffs, then your argument is pretty trash.

Because the same can be said of James Harden, Curry (before Durant) or Kawhi.

None of their teams are under preforming.

James Harden and Kawhi Leonard have teams that can actually play well when they go to the bench. Curry before Durant had a team that could win a playoff series without him.

LeBron doesn't have that luxury. This is provable, check the on/off. Check their record when he rests. But you seem hell bent on blaming other players playing like crap on LeBron, even when he's not on the court when the majority of poor play happens. Because he has recognizable names on his team.

Cool.

Lebron James team is FAR SUPERIOR to either Kawhi's or Harden's. It's not even close. I can't even fathom you making an argument other wise.

If they're under preforming then Lebron as the leader of the team should get them to improve. But he hasn't.

You seem hell bent on making every excuse in the book for Lebron and blaming everything on one of the most talented teams in the NBA.

If Lebron wanted to win the MVP, he should have won 60 games and got his team to preform up to par like they did last season. But he didn't.

So he doesn't get it. Not that hard to rationalize.

So Kawhi and Harden are better leaders than LeBron?

LMAO. Kawhi doesn't even speak, the MVP and leader of the Spurs is Popovich. Harden doesn't even try to play any defense, that's the reason why they don't fall apart without him, because they play way better defense with him on the bench. He's not really setting an example with his leadership.

On/off:

LeBron: +17.5

Harden: +1.5
Kawhi: +2.0

Not to mention that the Spurs have won all but one game that Kawhi has sat out this year.

The difference isn't LeBron not being a good enough leader, it's that Kawhi and Harden have better team situations, whether you want to believe it or not. The actual evidence backs that up.

[-Sammy-]

I'm pretty sure Lebron hand picked Deron Williams to come to the Cavaliers. He literally runs the franchise.

There were plenty of other backup Point Guards, he could have gotten instead if Deron wasn't good enough.

Please link to the data that led you to be 'pretty sure' LeBron hand-picked Williams. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that it isn't an unfounded assumption on your part based on the equally-assumptive notion that he 'literally runs the franchise'.

Lebron makes the decision for the Cavaliers. This was even cited as one of the main reasons he left Miami.

It's as clear as night and day.

If you can't see that, you're just not being honest with yourself.

Restating your initial assumption without providing any corroborative sources-- right on.

[Mbrahv0528]

The Cavs play well when he's on the court, and then play like crap when he's off the court.

Yup, it's LeBron's fault that nobody else on the team knows how to play defense or run an efficient offense without him.

I mean, I already explained this, but I expect you to totally ignore it and act indignant, as per usual.

Yeah I already heard Lebron cry about how nobody could run the offense and needed a play maker.

Then Griffin went out and got him the best backup Point Guard in the league.

Not exactly buying that excuse.

Hard for me to believe that the 2nd most talented roster in the NBA is just so terrible and awful. The problem then is either leadership or coaching.

Lebron is in charge of both.

Deron Williams took a terrible backup PG situation and somehow made it worse. They've been **** ing awful with Deron Williams as their backup.

I don't really care about what you believe. It's factual, they've sucked without him. Their 2 "All-Stars" also never led a team anywhere until they played with LeBron.

Can't believe I have to defend LeBron being the best player in the game to you people.

There's nothing to defend though. He's not the clear cut best player in the NBA anymore.

Sent from my 2PS64 using RealGM mobile app

[therealbig3]

Yeah I already heard Lebron cry about how nobody could run the offense and needed a play maker.

Then Griffin went out and got him the best backup Point Guard in the league.

Not exactly buying that excuse.

Hard for me to believe that the 2nd most talented roster in the NBA is just so terrible and awful. The problem then is either leadership or coaching.

Lebron is in charge of both.

Deron Williams took a terrible backup PG situation and somehow made it worse. They've been **** ing awful with Deron Williams as their backup.

I don't really care about what you believe. It's factual, they've sucked without him. Their 2 "All-Stars" also never led a team anywhere until they played with LeBron.

Can't believe I have to defend LeBron being the best player in the game to you people.

There's nothing to defend though. He's not the clear cut best player in the NBA anymore.

Sent from my 2PS64 using RealGM mobile app

Strongly disagree. And if anyone even has an argument, it's the other guy that nobody is talking about for MVP: Curry.

[Impuniti]

LeBron has been fabulous all season; even his most ardent haters have to admit that; therefore, the discussion concerns the quality of the rest of the team. You can't have it both ways-- you can't observe that they're under-performing in an attempt to dismiss LeBron's contribution, then turn around and proclaim that they have two all-stars to negate the importance of said contribution.

The evidence speaks for itself; they're been under-performing this season (as you rightly observed), yet they're a 50-plus-win team leading the entire conference; LeBron is the reason for that.

You can't be an MVP player if your team underperforms though, that's kind of a huge point of being an MVP during the year I would think.

That's debatable in the sense that one player can only do so much to coax the best out of another. What if you worked all year for a promotion only to have your boss say, 'you aren't getting promoted because the guy who works next to you did a lousy job'; that wouldn't be fair.

Obviously, LBJ is the leader of the team, but that doesn't change the reality that someone can only do so much to make someone else better; otherwise, let's criticize Jordan for never turning Bill Wennington into Bill Russell.

They did it last year. They did it in the first half of this season. I don't understand how this is a valid excuse. We're talking about a team that has 3 all stars, one the best in the world, highest payroll in the league, current champions. When they won last year, everyone was praising Lebron for being an ATG AND for being so amazing that he elevates everyone's play. Now?

"Well we can't blame him for others not performing?" Really? Because the exact opposite was happening less than a year ago. So which is it? These guys were better, even in the first half this season. They won the championship. It's not like Lebron changed teams in the last 3 months with only scrubs accompanying him. This is the annoying hypocrisy that I'm not a fan of. Gets all the credit when things go well, but it's "different" when it goes bad. No, you can't have both ways. It's either LeGM is responsible for both when the team plays exceptionally well and wins a ring and when they play poorly, or neither. We have evidence of him raining in all the credit for elevating team play last year (which I totally agree with of course), but we don't get to sing a different song now that things aren't going quite so swell.

I agree that Bron has been great this season as well, but your job as a leader is to get the team to perform.. which they haven't.

51 wins, leading the conference = not performing?

With the second most talented squad, 3 all stars, in the weak east, has the best player in the world, and by far the highest payroll? You're Goddamn right it's not performing to the level they are supposed. Lets not act for a second that this how good these guys should be with the team they have.

So he's responsible for it.

I can flip that on you; I can point out that they're the conference leader despite how poorly they've performed in the second half of the season. If you say LBJ is responsible for them underperforming, I say he's responsible for them being in such a great position despite how badly they've struggled. Where does that leave us? Back to the ageless question of what an MVP actually is.

I don't get this. By this logic, you literally can never fault Lebron for anything. When they killed it at last year's final, was Lebron not responsible for his team getting it together? Kyrie crushing it, TT killing the Warriors in rebounds, and Swish making clutch shots? People were praising Lebron then for elevating his team together to beat the Warriors, no one disputed this.

Now all of the sudden, it's "different".

This seems like the only season where NBA fans are making a lot of changes on what's expected out the MVP.

Eh... this debate rages every season; it's just more pointed this year because the front-runners in the race are so tightly-arrayed in the home-stretch.

And for what it's worth, LBJ isn't my MVP (Harden is); I just take issue with your original assertion that he doesn't belong in the conversation. That team would be a wreck if he weren't there, so even if he's not the most valuable guy this year, it's silly to pretend like he isn't in the thick of the discussion.

Because he doesn't. His team is underperforming with the quality level they have and should be doing better. They're not, therefore, he shouldn't be considered. I'm sure he could be a top 5 MVP or whatever arbitrary number you want to use, he's just not the top guy to vote for. He doesn't deserve it. No MVP winner before has had an underperforming team, and we're not all going to change our minds because people are big fans of Lebron.

[-Sammy-]

Yeah I already heard Lebron cry about how nobody could run the offense and needed a play maker.

Then Griffin went out and got him the best backup Point Guard in the league.

Not exactly buying that excuse.

Hard for me to believe that the 2nd most talented roster in the NBA is just so terrible and awful. The problem then is either leadership or coaching.

Lebron is in charge of both.

Deron Williams took a terrible backup PG situation and somehow made it worse. They've been **** ing awful with Deron Williams as their backup.

I don't really care about what you believe. It's factual, they've sucked without him. Their 2 "All-Stars" also never led a team anywhere until they played with LeBron.

Can't believe I have to defend LeBron being the best player in the game to you people.

There's nothing to defend though. He's not the clear cut best player in the NBA anymore.

Sent from my 2PS64 using RealGM mobile app

If you want to argue that he's not the best anymore, or that's it's not clear-cut, or whatever else, it's fine; that's subjective, and it's largely a function of what 'best player' means, which differs from person to person.

The nexus of the present discussion in this thread isn't that LBJ is or isn't a clear-cut anything-- it's the ridiculous notion that he's not in the conversation for MVP. Nobody has an issue with people picking someone else, but acting like it's an affront to the award that LBJ is in the discussion is what's so ludicrous, and that's what some of us are taking issue with.

[The Box Office]

Wow, pretty sad watching Westbrook blatantly chase two assists at the 3-4 minute mark of the 4th, while his team was down 20+ points. Passing up shots just to pass, to the point that Phoenix started intentionally fouling everyone. He finally took himself out when the Suns started to just foul him. That's a mockery of the game.

Stat chasing at its worst. How can any of y'all defend that? That's how history is made?

Yup. I have no problem with it. They're down 20 points. It's a team game. Westbrook feeds them the ball. His teammates can't make the shots. That's not Westbrook's fault.

I went through the Derrick Rose vs. LeBron MVP race. The comments were much worse here on RealGM than Westbrook getting the triple doubles against Harden. A lot of you ignored Chicago's best record of 62-20 entirely and kept talking about Rose's inefficiency and why Rose's stats do not match up to LeBron. Yes, Rose's individual numbers were not close to LeBron's.

The story lines and praise from Hall of Famers, towards the end of the season, which have nothing to do with stats and win record, drive the MVP race, too. Rose got Michael Jordan's and NBA.com's praise. LeBron did not. I knew it was over.

Same goes for Westbrook. He got MJ's praise along with other Hall of Famers and coaches. Harden didn't get that. Westbrook is currently number one on NBA.com's MVP ladder.

Tonight's game against the Suns showed how crappy Westbrook's teammates are. They really do suck. Oladipo, Taj Gibson, McDermott, Roberson, and Steven Adams. Couldn't even make a clean jump shot for a Big Mac if they tried. Awful roster and Westbrook force fed them the ball to make shots.

[Impuniti]

Please stop this Cavs is a trash team without Lebron argument. They won a damn ring last year. You can't just give all the credit to Lebron when they won and blame it all on his teammates when they don't. It's about the whole team performing or not, can't have it both way.

This is exactly what's happening. That's why I used the big RS games as an example, because people do this to a tee. Praise him when he wins, game didn't mean anything to him if he loses or gets blown out.

[therealbig3]

Best player in the game = automatic MVP consideration. And the fact that he still has more impact than pretty much anyone else in the league according to +/- makes him my pick. It's as simple as that.

[Fico92]

James Harden and Kawhi Leonard have teams that can actually play well when they go to the bench. Curry before Durant had a team that could win a playoff series without him.

LeBron doesn't have that luxury. This is provable, check the on/off. Check their record when he rests. But you seem hell bent on blaming other players playing like crap on LeBron, even when he's not on the court when the majority of poor play happens. Because he has recognizable names on his team.

Cool.

Lebron James team is FAR SUPERIOR to either Kawhi's or Harden's. It's not even close. I can't even fathom you making an argument other wise.

If they're under preforming then Lebron as the leader of the team should get them to improve. But he hasn't.

You seem hell bent on making every excuse in the book for Lebron and blaming everything on one of the most talented teams in the NBA.

If Lebron wanted to win the MVP, he should have won 60 games and got his team to preform up to par like they did last season. But he didn't.

So he doesn't get it. Not that hard to rationalize.

Not to mention that the Spurs have won all but one game that Kawhi has sat out this year

I remember in high school when they taught us that context is important.

Remind me which teams were playoff teams at the time the Spurs beat them without Kawhi?

1. Raptors - missing 28ppg scorer
2. Warriors - missing top 4 players

That's it.

Nice try tho brah

[Fico92]

Best player in the game = automatic MVP consideration. And the fact that he still has more impact than pretty much anyone else in the league according to +/- makes him my pick. It's as simple as that.

Too bad the voters never vote like that tho.

#notmyMVP

[therealbig3]

Praising him when things go well, because HE'S by far the most important reason that things are going well, is warranted.

Criticizing him when things go bad, even though HE'S by far the most important reason why they're not a complete dumpster fire this season, is not warranted.

It would make sense if the Cavs weren't playing all that much better even when he's on the court, or they played bad with or without him, but the fact that they're only bad without him on the court means that he's not the issue here. And the fact that they actually play REALLY well when he's on the court means that he's actually the main reason why they don't completely suck.

Put that all together, combined with the fact that he's still the best player in the world...and you have a legitimate MVP candidate.

And actually, the media has been talking about him being in the conversation this entire time, so I'm far from the only person that feels this way. In fact, acting like he has no business to be in the conversation is what's the minority opinion here.

[therealbig3]

Best player in the game = automatic MVP consideration. And the fact that he still has more impact than pretty much anyone else in the league according to +/- makes him my pick. It's as simple as that.

Too bad the voters never vote like that tho.

#notmyMVP

And I don't care. I simply said he was MY pick for MVP. Acting like he has no case is what's actually ridiculous here.

[Fico92]

Praising him when things go well, because HE'S by far the most important reason that things are going well, is warranted.

Criticizing him when things go bad, even though HE'S by far the most important reason why they're not a complete dumpster fire this season, is not warranted.

It would make sense if the Cavs weren't playing all that much better even when he's on the court, or they played bad with or without him, but the fact that they're only bad without him on the court means that he's not the issue here. And the fact that they actually play REALLY well when he's on the court means that he's actually the main reason why they don't completely suck.

Put that all together, combined with the fact that he's still the best player in the world...and you have a legitimate MVP candidate.

And actually, the media has been talking about him being in the conversation this entire time, so I'm far from the only person that feels this way. In fact, acting like he has no business to be in the conversation is what's the minority opinion here.

So regular season MVP should be based on when he turns it on in the Playoffs? Could he average 5/5/5 in the regular season and 30/10/10 in Playoffs and deserve REGULAR SEASON MVP?

Bruh.....

[therealbig3]

Lebron James team is FAR SUPERIOR to either Kawhi's or Harden's. It's not even close. I can't even fathom you making an argument other wise.

If they're under preforming then Lebron as the leader of the team should get them to improve. But he hasn't.

You seem hell bent on making every excuse in the book for Lebron and blaming everything on one of the most talented teams in the NBA.

If Lebron wanted to win the MVP, he should have won 60 games and got his team to preform up to par like they did last season. But he didn't.

So he doesn't get it. Not that hard to rationalize.

Not to mention that the Spurs have won all but one game that Kawhi has sat out this year

I remember in high school when they taught us that context is important.

Remind me which teams were playoff teams at the time the Spurs beat them without Kawhi?

1. Raptors - missing 28ppg scorer
2. Warriors - missing top 4 players

That's it.

Nice try tho brah

Cavs would have lost more than 1 game against those teams without LeBron though. And again, Spurs actually play very well with Kawhi on the bench. Cavs don't play well at all with LeBron on the bench.

[therealbig3]

Praising him when things go well, because HE'S by far the most important reason that things are going well, is warranted.

Criticizing him when things go bad, even though HE'S by far the most important reason why they're not a complete dumpster fire this season, is not warranted.

It would make sense if the Cavs weren't playing all that much better even when he's on the court, or they played bad with or without him, but the fact that they're only bad without him on the court means that he's not the issue here. And the fact that they actually play REALLY well when he's on the court means that he's actually the main reason why they don't completely suck.

Put that all together, combined with the fact that he's still the best player in the world...and you have a legitimate MVP candidate.

And actually, the media has been talking about him being in the conversation this entire time, so I'm far from the only person that feels this way. In fact, acting like he has no business to be in the conversation is what's the minority opinion here.

So regular season MVP should be based on when he turns it on in the Playoffs? Could he average 5/5/5 in the regular season and 30/10/10 in Playoffs and deserve REGULAR SEASON MVP?

Bruh.....

Where did I say that?

[gmoney411]

Tonight's game against the Suns showed how crappy Westbrook's teammates are. They really do suck. Oladipo, Taj Gibson, McDermott, Roberson, and Steven Adams. Couldn't even make a clean jump shot for a Big Mac if they tried. Awful roster and Westbrook force fed them the ball to make shots.

You are spot on. Roberson was trash tonight. 0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals. It was almost like he wasn't even on the court tonight.

Don't get me started on Gibson, Adams, Victor, and Doug. They were an awful 17/38. You can't win with supporting players shooting 45%.

Russ did all he could but sometimes going 6/25 just isn't enough to carry a team. Damn shame.

[kingmalaki]

Wow, pretty sad watching Westbrook blatantly chase two assists at the 3-4 minute mark of the 4th, while his team was down 20+ points. Passing up shots just to pass, to the point that Phoenix started intentionally fouling everyone. He finally took himself out when the Suns started to just foul him. That's a mockery of the game.

Stat chasing at its worst. How can any of y'all defend that? That's how history is made?

Yup. I have no problem with it. They're down 20 points. It's a team game. Westbrook feeds them the ball. His teammates can't make the shots. That's not Westbrook's fault.

I went through the Derrick Rose vs. LeBron MVP race. The comments were much worse here on RealGM than Westbrook getting the triple doubles against Harden. A lot of you ignored Chicago's best record of 62-20 entirely and kept talking about Rose's inefficiency and why Rose's stats do not match up to LeBron. Yes, Rose's individual numbers were not close to LeBron's.

The story lines and praise from Hall of Famers, towards the end of the season, which have nothing to do with stats and win record, drive the MVP race, too. Rose got Michael Jordan's and NBA.com's praise. LeBron did not. I knew it was over.

Same goes for Westbrook. He got MJ's praise along with other Hall of Famers and coaches. Harden didn't get that. Westbrook is currently number one on NBA.com's MVP ladder.

Tonight's game against the Suns showed how crappy Westbrook's teammates are. They really do suck. Oladipo, Taj Gibson, McDermott, Roberson, and Steven Adams. Couldn't even make a clean jump shot for a Big Mac if they tried. Awful roster and Westbrook force fed them the ball to make shots.

I disagree with most of what you said, but I was specifically referring to the last 3-5 minutes. Westbrook was still in the game and they were down 20+. He wasn't trying to win the game. He was trying to get two more assists to hit a statistical benchmark. That's blatant stat chasing. It has nada to do with playing to win the game or be competitive. That's how he tried to break a record tonight....passing the ball around in a blowout trying to pad stats.

[therealbig3]

Russ played like garbage, let's just get that straight.

It's one game though. It doesn't define his season, in which he's overall been an efficient offensive player, has been putting up MONSTER stats that have actually led to wins, and is carrying a pretty terrible supporting cast to 45+ wins and a playoff spot in the West.

Not my pick for MVP, but I think he's been freakin awesome.