The stats are clear in the NBA regular season - LeBron James is lagging behind Giannis Antetokounmpo and is likely to lose out against James Harden. But beyond the numbers, it is the King who made the most impact in the season if the consideration will be focused on how James changed the Los Angeles Lakers.
That was the explanation offered by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, who admitted that his MVP vote for the season went to the Lakers superstar. Shelburne said the narrative surrounding James and the resurgent Lakers got her.
It's not that James is the better basketball player compared to his close rivals at Milwaukee and Houston but Shelburne said what transpired at Los Angles after James' arrival was simply hard to ignore.
"I feel like LeBron James took a Lakers team that had missed the playoffs six years in a row up to the top spot in the West after all of the dysfunction of the summer before," the Lakers Daily reported the ESPN journalist as saying.
Shelburne gave credit to James' efforts in the past two years that saw the Lakers inching closer to the fabled team that catapulted the careers of NBA greats such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kobe Bryant.
Post the Bryant era, the Lakers that James had joined in 2018 were nothing near to the superteam of yesteryears. Gradually, the King worked hard to bring his new team back to the top and with Anthony Davis, his investment appeared to be paying off.
Shelburne admitted that in making her pick for the season's best player, he gave more weight to the compelling Lakers narrative. And report agreed that championing for a redemptive story such as James and the Lakers' comes naturally for many so the Shelburne vote is hardly a surprise.
It might be that Shelburne's sentiments will be the same as that of her colleagues and James will win the MVP nod in the end. According to Clutch Points, the Lakers star is certainly deserving to get his win No. 5 of the award.
There was no assurance that things will be better for James when he left Cleveland for Los Angeles two years ago. And indeed, disappointment greeted him in his first season with the club. The Lakers were eliminated in season 2018-19 and James got to taste the agony of not playing in the playoffs for the first time in his career.
The King, however, persevered and the Lakers continued building up. In the ongoing campaign, James' team is one of the most favored to win the title. It could happen and James could take home the MVP trophy as well, which the same report said are honors that James has been working for in the past two years.
