The debate over who should win the NBA’s MVP award is at a fever pitch with just two days left in the regular season. At this point, it’s mostly a two-man race, James Harden and Stephen Curry vie for the lead with each shot they take and assist they dish out. But according to J.R. Smith, the race is already over, and his pick for MVP won’t surprise you very much.
According to J.R., his teammate LeBron James is the real MVP.
“In actuality, if you really wanted to, you could give it to him every year,” Smith said of James, who won the award four times in his first 11 seasons in the league. “I mean, the numbers, what he does for teams. You see one year removed from a team like Miami and they probably won’t even make the playoffs to a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since he left and then all of the sudden we’re a 52-win team. So, I don’t think you can do that with anybody else that’s in our league right now.
“Not to knock anything from the other two guys (Stephen Curry and James Harden), they’re having great years, career years for both of them, but if you want to be realistic about it, you could give it to him every time.”
Honestly, despite his obvious bias, his reasoning is pretty sound. As far as “most valuable” goes, it’s hard to say anybody in the league is more valuable than LeBron. If they win their game against the Wizards tomorrow, the Cavs will have improved this season by 20 wins and 8 seeds in the Eastern Conference standings from last year. Meanwhile the Heat have lost 17 more games than they did last year, with a chance to lose one more against the 76ers tomorrow. They’ve swapped places in the standings with the Cavs as well, dropping from 2nd last year to 10th this year.
Granted, there are plenty of other variables that play into the Cavs and Heat swapping fortunes this season, but James is undoubtedly the biggest one.
Now Kevin Love, that’s how you answer the MVP question when your teammate is one of the candidates.
(Via ESPN)
