Every year around this time begins talk of who the NBA’s Most Valuable Player of the season is, partially due to a large sample size of games played. Example candidates include Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Kyle Lowry, Kawhi Leonard, and even Kyrie Irving.
However, the league’s MVP should be unanimously LeBron James. And it’s not even close…
Without creating too much of a narrative and build-up, let’s get straight into it.
A lot of people can point out the Cavs have only won 3 out of 15 games (20%) of games LeBron hasn’t played in since his return to Cleveland in 2014. Others can point to the shooting percentage of Cavs players significantly decreased with LeBron off the court, or even the complete loss of comprehension of basketball when he is not on the court.
However, I look at the stat that encompasses all of that, that being overall plus-minus (+/-).
For those who don’t know what +/- is:
Basically, it’s how important is that certain player to their team. Overall +/- is better because it proves how consistently important that player is to their team every night.
When researching, it came as both a shock and unsurprising of the top 5 players in +/-: the Warriors’ 4 best players: Curry, Klay, Durant, Draymond, and LeBron.
What this essentially means is that all 4 Warriors’ players are incredibly important to the success of Golden State, which also means that not one of them should be the MVP of the league, since there is not one player with an outlier +/- for the entire team.
This also means that the Warriors are a team of 4 stars, and the rest being a sub-par supporting cast (which you can decipher on film, not necessarily this stat).
The same can be said about the Clippers, who have 3 top 10 +/- players in the NBA (Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, JJ Redick).
Oddly enough, this also means that when one of the 4 is off the court, no matter who else is on the court, the Warriors play a lot worse. The Warriors’ success relies solely on when all 4 players are on the court.
From this perspective, the Warriors’ players all cancel each other out (you can’t give an MVP award to 4 players). So for me, LeBron is the MVP.
He is by far more reliable than any other player on the Cavs and in the NBA. You can see that in the record and in the film of how the Cavs attack and defend. Not only that, but LeBron’s absence from the court leaves a dark presence for Cleveland on the court.
LeBron’s +/- per 36 minutes is the only player’s in the top 12 that goes down from the +/- per game, other than Kyle Lowry’s. This is simply because Kyle Lowry and LeBron respectively have played the 3rd and 4th most minutes per game in the NBA this season (37.0 and 36.9 mpg respectively, which is obviously greater than 36 minutes).
While looking at Westbrook and Kawhi, their +/- are respectively 25th and 29th in the NBA (Kyrie is 20th btw). This isn’t too odd for Leonard, because the Spurs are the most solid overall team in the NBA, and have been for the past 20 years.
What’s surprising is Westbrook’s lack of +/-. One could say that although Russ brings a lot of triple doubles and efficiency to the table, the Thunder have a good scheme of team basketball with Westbrook off the court.
However, it also means the Thunder struggle a decent amount, so that deflates Westbrook’s +/- a little bit.
This stat can be misleading when interpreted incorrectly. However, I like it because it addresses 1) how good a team is, and 2) how important a player is to that team.
The Cavs are a great team, and that is 100% due to the direction of LeBron. The Thunder are a 5th place team in the NBA that derive a lot of their success off of Westbrook and the entire team when Russ is off the court.
LeBron brings a lot more to the Cavs than just beast stats, including offensive/defensive efficiency, cohesiveness, rhythm, and a successful attitude, important characteristics not necessarily represented via stats.
My MVP list for this season so far goes:
1. LeBron James
2. Russell Westbrook
3. James Harden
4. Steph Curry
5. Kawhi Leonard
Feel free to roast me on this article at twitter.com/KinsleyLes.
(info via. sportingcharts.com and espn.com)
Lake Erie Sports 