I never thought I would see the day. Never thought I would be sitting here thinking LeBron James got robbed of the NBA Finals MVP award after losing in 6 games to the Golden State Warriors. Alas, here we are. Now, It's no secret that I am not the world's biggest LeBron fan, no matter how incredible he is to watch play basketball. So, for that reason I am not not losing any sleep over him not coming away with any hardware after failing to win his 3rd NBA championship. However, I do think he was done a slight disservice. Full disclosure, I scoffed at the idea of a member of the losing team winning the award as recently as 2 games ago. Part of that is my hesitancy to give LeBron credit, and part of that is my hatred of J.S. Giguere winning the Conn Smythe Trophy when the Devils won the cup in 2003. The clear difference in those situations is that J.S. Giguere and Martin Brodeur were so evenly matched throughout those playoffs that I felt the winner of the series would have to hold the trump card. In this series, the loser winning MVP was only a legitimate discussion because James was far and away better than anyone else on the court.
I don't think you can argue against the belief that the MVP has to come from the winning team, but if you were to put forth an argument this would be the year to do it. LeBron basically just came within two games of winning a championship with a bunch of Knicks castoffs. Yeah, those Knicks. The same ones that would have failed to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference if they didn't get shipped to Cleveland for next to nothing. He damn near averaged a triple double in the finals with not one other reliable offensive player on the floor. I don't say this to take away anything from Andre Iguodala's accomplishments. I'm actually an Iggy fan, and he had a huge impact on turning the series around, but LeBron was the ONLY reason the series needed to be turned around in the first place. I'm not shedding any tears for the guy, but this just proved that losers can't win. Probably a good thing too. Would have been really awkward to strut LeBron out there in the middle the Warriors celebration. It''s almost makes too much sense to not interrupt the victor's celebration and let the loser continue to sulk. An MVP award would basically be a moral victory of sorts, and the best player in basketball should be above moral victories at this point in his career. P.S. Got to know what the odds were for Iguodala winning MVP before the series started. Furthermore, got to know if anyone actually bet it.
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