The NBA media is toying with us, LeBron is MVP and they know it

In all fairness, yes Russell Westbrook had a tremendous year averaging a triple double for the entire season. Yes he is one of the most the most dynamic players in the league. Personally yes I would go see Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder play over many players in the league but that does not make him automatically valuable. Flashy and fun and triple double does not mean valuable.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, valuable is defined as this:

A :  having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities

B :  of great use or service

Now let’s start off with the first definition. Having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities. Russell Westbrook started off the season all alone because Kevin Durant decided to leave Oklahoma City and hit the road for Golden State. Westbrook was left alone with “no one” left on his team as the media put it and that might be true in today’s style of play in the league but there is a reason why he had no one to play with. Having desirable characteristics and qualities in a basketball sense means players and free agents who are generally stars in the league want to come to your team and play with you. Westbrook is the complete opposite of that. He drove out the only star player he has ever known in Kevin Durant because he is not the kind of player someone would want to play with. He is also not going to attract any star or role players to the Thunder because they know they will not be getting their share of the ball. He is extremely selfish, ball centric and cared a lot about his stats during the regular season.

But the NBA media does not care about his selfish play. They show his thunderous highlights and make you fall in love with the triple double even though in a way it did not make Westbrook’s teammates any better. His assist to turnover ratio was abysmal at 1.9 which ranked him 112^th in the league. In basketball assists to turnover ratio measures a players total assists to their total turnovers to give an indication to how well they control and move the ball on the court. This measurement is especially effective at measuring ball control, because a player who distributes the ball and gains assists without turning the ball over will have a high ratio. For the Assists to Turnover Ratio, the higher the better. At 1.9, that means averaging ten assists per game really was not being effective at all because he averaged almost six turnovers a game which led to fast break points for the other teams and effectively led them to losses.

Now to the second part of the definition. To be of great use on a NBA team a player must be efficient while on the court and Russell Westbrook does not fit that nature. He would not make a team better if you took him away from the Thunder and put him anywhere else in the league. He would just take away the shots from that team’s star players. He is the kind of player who just wants to get his and is all about the stat stuffing. He is not efficient while on the court as you can see with his assist to turnover ratio. Rebounds for guards mean nothing because they will get the ball immediately after the big men underneath rebound the missed shot and because of his entire play I cannot see him winning playoff games and definitely not winning championships with this mentality of “the ball is my only friend”.

However, as a point guard I understand that they have the ball in their hands the majority of the time however, a point guard that gets all the hype and who is shown as one of the better point guards in the league through the media is ridiculous especially when he is only hurting his team. He is so far from MVP material and he should not be the clear favorite to win it.

Now let’s take a look at a player who has deserved it from the start and who has been overshadowed by the Russell Westbrook triple double fan fair by the media.

LeBron James should be the front-runner for the 2016/2017 NBA MVP and it should not be even close. I do not care if he said he does not care about the regular season because in a sense he is right. The Cleveland Cavaliers are the front-runner to come out of the East especially the way they manhandled the Boston Celtics in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals last Wednesday in Boston with LeBron scoring 38 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists. The reason why they won it was because of LeBron James. However, since this award is a regular season award, let’s talk about that.

LeBron James averaged 26.4 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 8.7 assists during the 2016/2017 regular season. Now that might not blow you away because it is not a triple double but it is MVP quality numbers. Take a look back at the 2012/2013 NBA season where he won his third MVP award. He averaged 26.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 7.3 assists. This is crazy how people are looking past LeBron James right now, he is averaging more rebounds and more assists this past season than he has in his entire fourteen year career. It is absolutely remarkable how efficient he is and how he can actually lead his team to wins, lead them to the playoffs as a top three seed every year and win championships. But no one cares because he did not average a triple double. Do you know why he did not average a triple double this year or any year in his entire career for that matter? Because he actually is a great use and gets his teammates involved and when they are in a groove and making the crucial shots in a game he finds them and lets them take over. You can also place LeBron James on any team in the Eastern or Western Conferences and you automatically make that team a contender. That is what being valuable is. He is a desirable player, everyone wants him and everyone wants to play with him.

This is a league award not a team award. Russell Westbrook might be the Oklahoma City Thunder’s MVP but LeBron James is the league’s MVP and the NBA medias knows it but will not admit it because this year LeBron James was not flashy and he did not average a triple double.

However, even with Russell Westbrook probably winning the MVP this year, it will not mean anything because he was unable to lead his team to more than one playoff win this postseason while LeBron James is heading to his seventh straight Finals appearance and has a good chance to win it all again for the second straight year.