NBA 2015 Poll: Should LeBron James Take His 5th MVP Trophy?
Will LeBron James join Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell among the few basketball stars with at least five MVP awards?
Possibly, according to the Bleacher Report.
James, the proverbial King of American basketball nowadays, has won four times and was among the Top 5 finalists five other times, the article recounted, and this 10th nomination might be his fifth title.
That is if he can surpass the tight competition this year, brought by Stephen Curry of the Golden State Wariors, James Harden of the Houston Rockets and Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder who, the Bleacher Report noted, can mount good arguments for the award.
Curry is the best player for the Warriors, now with a league-leading 49-12 record, the report said. Meanwhile, Harden has led his team to a Top 3 position in the Western Conference sans Dwight Howard, and Westbrook has marched to the playoffs sans Kevin Durant.
Fox Sports added that Curry and his team were on a "banner year," and Harden is the best scorer in the league.
The report added that James is not the popular choice this year, but has at least gloriously ascended into the list after starting slow with the Cleveland Cavaliers since July.
The report said he did not finish at the rim like the James that performed for the Miami Heat in the past season -- later discovered to be a consequence of strain in the back and the knee.
In the first 39 games of the season (19-20), presumed assets like Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and pre-injury Anderson Verajao were not finding their groove, Fox Sports noted. Even Kevin Love was performing below expectations, it added.
But James recovered, and the roster was beefed up by J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov, it noted. The team is now 40-25, first in the Central Division, as they go head-to-head with the Dallas Mavericks away.
What is James' claim to the award, then?
It is his ability of "making magic," Fox Sports noted, citing the very dramatic improvement for the Cavs, him being the focal point.
For the Bleacher Report, the Cavs without James would be "pretty stinkin' bad."
In statistics, it explained, the chance of winning without James was 18 percent, compared to 70.4 with him playing. Without him, the average score is 80.1, a drop of 11.2 points.
It's all thanks to James' court vision and playmaking ability, it noted.
But ESPN has recently featured a potential waterloo -- nine turnovers in a 106-97 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, the ninth game in the season he made seven or more turnovers. The ESPN report added that he was averaging a career-high 4.2 turnovers per game this season.
"As far as turnovers, I suck, I suck," James said. "Those are careless turnovers, so it was split. Of my nine, I think five of them were unforced, four of them were attack turnovers. But, I suck. As far as me turning the ball over, I got to do better."